A Test of the News - by Charles Merz and Walter Lippmann

A

Test of the News

By WALTER LIPPMANN
and CHARLES MERZ

Prepared with the assistance of
FAYE LIPPMANN

An examination of the news reports in

the New York Times on aspects of

the Russian Revolution of special

importance to Americans

March 1917— March 1920

INTRODUCTION

I. TO THE JULY OFFENSIVE

II. PRELUDE TO BOLSHEVISM

III. WITHDRAWAL OF RUSSIA

IV. FOR INTERVENTION

V. THE FRONT CHANGES

VI. KOLCHAK

VII. THE KOLCHAK OFFENSIVE

VIII. DENIKIN

IX. THE DENIKIN OFFENSIVE

X. THE WEST FRONT

XI. OFFENSIVE AGAINST POLAND

XII. INTERVENTION FAILS
DEDUCTIONS

A Supplement to

The New Republic of August 4tk 1920

Vol. xxiii. part II. No. 296

borate vvv \ioi \iovaai 'Otafifuua 8u)[acxt' zyovaai
vyiEiq yag i)eca Sate, naQzexi xe igte te Jtavxa,
fjfieig 8e K^eog oiov dxoxJojiev ox>8e ti l5^gv

"Enlighten me now, O Muses, tenants of Olympian

homes,
For you are goddesses, inside on everything, know

everything.
But we mortals hear only the news, and know

nothing at all.

Iliad II 484-86.

i

A Test of the News

BY WALTER LIPPMANN AND CHARLES MERZ

C O n t

INTRODUCTION 1

I. TO THE JULY OFFENSIVE 4

Two Views of Russia's Power 4

Reputable and Disreputable 5

II. THE PRELUDE TO BOLSHEVISM 6

Misleading Optimism 6

The Quest of a Dictator-Savior 7

The Kornilov Rebellion 8

The End of Kerensky 9

III. THE WITHDRAWAL OF RUSSIA 10

Would the Soviets Last? 10

During the Parleys at Brest-Litovsk 11

Faith in the Bolsheviks Disappears 13

IV. THE APPEAL FOR INTERVENTION 13

The German Peril 14

The True Voice of Russia 15

The Push for Intervention 15

V. THE FRONT CHANGES 16

Something to Fight For 17

Red Peril 18

VI. KOLCHAK 19

The Man On Horseback., 19

Recognition 20

Kolchak in Power 21

e n t s

VII. THE KOLCHAK OFFENSIVE 22

The Offensive Starts 22

Kolchak Triumphant 24

Disillusion 24

Re-Enchantment 25

The Strategic Withdrawal 26

The End of the Kolchak Myth 26

VIII. DENIKIN 27

Democracy in the Ukraine 27

The Picture Fades 28

IX. THE DENIKIN OFFENSIVE 28

The Spring of 1919 29

Midsummer 29

Denikin's Farthest North 30

Denikin in Retreat 31

X. THE WEST FRONT 32

The Spring Offensive 32

The Second Victory 33

XI. THE OFFENSIVE AGAINST POLAND 34

XII. WHEN INTERVENTION FAILED 36

Dr. Nansen 37

War's End 38

Red Peril Again 40

DEDUCTIONS 41

Introduction

IT is admitted that a sound public opinion can-
not exist without access to the news. There
is today a widespread and a growing doubt
whether there exists such an access to the news
about contentious affairs. This doubt ranges from
accusations of unconscious bias to downright charges
of corruption, from the belief that the news is col-
ored to the belief that the news is poisoned. On so
grave a matter evidence is needed. The study which
follows is a piece of evidence. It deals with the re-
porting of one great event in the recent history of
the world. That event is the Russian Revolution
from March, 1917, to March, 1920. The analysis
covers thirty-six months and over one thousand is-
sues of a daily newspaper. The authors have ex-
amined all news items about Russia in that period
in the newspaper selected; between three and four
thousand items were noted. Little attention was
paid to editorials.

The New York Times was selected as the
medium through which to study the news, first
because the Times, as great as any newspaper in
America, and far greater than the majority, has
the means for securing news, second, because the

makeup of the news in the Times is technically ad-
mirable, third, because the Times index is an
enormous convenience to any student of contem-
porary history, fourth, because the bound volumes
are easily accessible, and fifth, because the Times
is one of the really great newspapers of the world.

The Russian Revolution was selected as the topic,
because of its intrinsic importance, and because it
has aroused the kind of passion which tests most
seriously the objectivity of reporting.

The first question, naturally, is what constitutes
the test of accuracy? A definitive account of the
Russian Revolution does not exist. In all prob-
ability it will never exist in this generation. After
a hundred years there is no undisputed history of
the French Revolution, and scholars are still de-
bating the causes and the meaning of the revolt
of the Gracchi, the fall of Rome, and even of the
American Revolution and the American Civil War.
A final history of the Russian Revolution may never
be written, and even a tolerably settled account is
not conceivable for a long time. It would be foot-
less therefore to propose an absolute measurement
of news gathered amid such excitement and con-

THE NEW REPUBLIC

AugUSt 4, IQ20

fusion. It would be equally vain to accept the ac-
count of one set of witnesses in preference to any
other set

The "whole truth" about Russia is not to be
had, and consequently no attempt is made by the
authors to contrast the news accounts with any
other account which pretends to be the "real truth"
or the u true truth." A totally different standard
of measurement is used here. The reliability of
the news is tested in this study by a few definite
and decisive happenings about which there is no
dispute. Thus there is no dispute that the offensive
of the Russian army under Kerensky in July 19 17
was a disastrous failure; no dispute that the Pro-
visional Government was overthrown by the Soviet
power in November 19 17; no dispute that the
Soviets made a separate peace with Germany at
Brest-Litovsk in March 1918; no dispute that the
campaigns of Kolchak, Denikin, and Yudenitch
were a failure; no dispute that the Soviet Govern-
ment was still in existence in March 1920. Against
such salient facts the daily reports about Russia
in this period are measured. The only question
asked is whether the reader of the news was given
a picture of various phases of the revolution which
survived the test of events, or whether he was
misled into believing that the outcome of events
would be radically different from the actual out-
come.

The question of atrocities and of the merits or
demerits of the Soviets is not raised. Thus, for
example, there was a Red Terror officially pro-
claimed by the Soviet Government in the summer
of 1 9 1 8 ; and apart from the official terror, excesses
occurred in many parts of Russia. No attempt is
made here to sift the truth of the accounts, to de-
termine whether there were exaggerations, or how
far the White Terror equalled the Red Terror.
The attempt is not made because no dependable
account is available with which to measure the news
reports. There was a round measure of truth in
the report of terror and atrocity. For analogous
reasons no discussion of the virtues and defects
of the Soviet system is attempted. There are no
authoritative reports. Able and disinterested ob-
servers furnish contradictory evidence out of which
no objective criteria emerge. Under these cir-
cumstances an accurate report of the Soviet Govern-
ment and the Terror is no doubt more than could
have been expected from a newspaper.

But what might more reasonably have been ex-
pected and what was more immediately important
for Americans, was to know in the summer of 19 17
whether the Russian army would fight, and whether
the Provisional Government would survive. It was
important to know in the winter of 1917-18 wheth-
er the Soviet Government would make a separate
peace. It was important to know in the spring and
early summer of 19 18 Whether the Russian people

would support Allied intervention. It was important
to know whether the Soviet Government was bound
to collapse soon under Allied pressure. It was im-
portant to know whether the White Generals —
Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenitch were, or were not,
winning their campaigns. It was important to know
whether Poland was defending herself or invading
Russia. It was important to know the disposition
of the Soviet Government toward peace at the time
of the peace conference. It was important to know
whether there was a Red Peril before Allied troops
entered Russia, or whether that peril dates from the
German surrender. It was important to know
whether the Red regime was tottering to its fall
or marching to the military conquest of the world.
On each one of these questions depended some
aspect of policy involving lives, trade, finance, and
national honor. It is important now to know what
was the net effect of the news on these points.

For the reader's convenience certain tentative
conclusions from the evidence are stated here:

1. From the overthrow of the Czar to the failure
of the Galician offensive in July 1917.

The difficulties in Russia, and especially
in the Russian army, are not concealed
from the attentive reader, but the domi-
nant tendency of the captions and the
emphasis is so optimistic as to be mis-
leading. (See Section I.)

2. From the military disaster in July 1917 to
the Bolshevik revolution of November.

The difficulties of the regime play a bigger
part in the news, but a misleading opti-
mism still continues. In this period, the
tendency to seek a solution through a
dictator-savior appears in the mistaken
hope placed upon the Kornilov ad-
venture, a hope quickly falsified by his
collapse. It may fairly be said that the
growth of the Bolshevik power from July
to November must have been seriously
underestimated in view of the success of
the November coup. (See Section II.)

3. From the Bolshevik revolution to the ratifi-
cation of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

This period is on the whole the best in
the three years. Different points of view
are given, and the emphasis is generally
neutral. After the recovery from the
shock of the second revolution, the re-
ports are inspired by an eager curiosity
about the diplomatic battle between the
Bolsheviks and the enemy. At the height
of this diplomatic battle the news is
handled in a rather uncritically pro-
Bolshevik fashion, as a result of the
optimistic assumption that the Soviets
would refuse to make peace with
Germany. (See Section III.)

August 4, IQ20

THE NEW REPUBLIC

4. From the ratification at Brest-Litovsk, which
coincided approximately with the Great Ger-
man offensive in March 1918, to the decision
for Allied intervention in August 19 18.

Under the stress of disappointment and
danger the tone and quality of the news
change radically. Organized propaganda
for intervention penetrates the news. This
propaganda has two phases. There is a
short and intense period in late March
and early April, which stops rather sud-
denly with the announcement that the
President has decided against interven-
tion. There is a prolonged and intense
period beginning about May which cul-
minates in the American approval of in-
tervention. (See Section IV.)

5. The months immediately following the sign-
ing of the armistice.

The Red Peril, which had hitherto
played only an insignificant role, now
takes precedence in the news from Russia
and serves as a new motive for Allied
intervention. (See Section V.)

6. The Spring, Summer and Autumn of 19 19.

Kolchak, Denikin and Yudenitch are
heralded as dictator-saviors of Russia;
for their campaigns, extravagant claims
are made" when they are moving for-
ward; in retreat there is a steady as-
surance that a better turn is coming.
(See Sections VI, VII, VIII, IX and X.)
Meantime the world is warned against
a Russian invasion of Poland — though
Polish troops are as a matter of fact
deep in Russian soil. (See Section XI.)

7. The Winter of 1919-20 and the Spring of

1920.

Once more, with the failure'of the White
Armies, the Red Peril reappears.
The news as a whole is dominated by the hopes
of the men who composed the news organization.
They began as passionate partisans in a great war
in which their own country's future was at stake.
Until the armistice they were interested in defeat-
ing Germany. They hoped until they could hope
no longer that Russia would fight. When they saw
she could not fight, they worked for intervention
as part of the war against Germany. When the
war with Germany was over, the intervention still
existed. They found reasons then for continuing
the intervention. The German Peril as the reason
for intervention ceased with the armistice; the Red
Peril almost immediately afterwards supplanted it.
The Red Peril in turn gave place to rejoicing over
the hopes of the White Generals. When these
hopes died, the Red Peril reappeared. In the large,
the news about Russia is a case of seeing not what
was, but what men wished to see.

This deduction is more important, in the opinion
of the authors, than any other. The chief censor
and the chief propagandist were hope and fear
in the minds of reporters and editors. They
wanted to win the war; they wanted to ward off
bolshevism. These subjective obstacles to the free
pursuit of facts account for the tame submission of
enterprising men to the objective censorship and
propaganda under which they did their work. For
subjective reasons they accepted and believed most
of what they were told by the State Department, the
so-called Russian Embassy in Washington, the
Russian Information Bureau in New York, the
Russian Committee in Paris, and the agents and
adherents of the old regime all over Europe. For
the same reason they endured the attention of
officials at crucial points like Helsingfors, Omsk,
Vladivostok, Stockholm, Copenhagen, London and
Paris. For the same reason they accepted reports
of governmentally controlled news services abroad,
and of correspondents who were unduly intimate
with the various secret services and with members
of the old Russian nobility.

From the point of view of professional journal-
ism the reporting of the Russian Revolution is noth-
ing short of a disaster. On the essential questions
the net effect was almost always misleading, and
misleading news is worse than none at all. Yet
on the face of the evidence there is no reason to
charge a conspiracy by Americans. They can fairly
be charged with boundless credulity, and an untiring
readiness to be gulled, and on many occasions with
a downright lack of common sense.

Whether they were "giving the public what it
wants" or creating a public that took what it got,
is beside the point. They were performing the
supreme duty in a democracy of supplying the in-
formation on which public opinion feeds, and they
were derelict in that duty. Their motives may have
been excellent. They wanted to win the war; they
wanted to save the world. They were nervously
excited by exciting events. They were baffled by
the complexity of affairs, and the obstacles created
by war. But whatever the excuses, the apologies,
and the extenuation, the fact remains that a great
people in a supreme crisis could not secure the
minimum of necessary information on a supremely
important event. When that truth has burned it-
self into men's consciousness, they will examine
the news in regard to other events, and begin a
searching inquiry into the sources of public opinion.
That is the indispensable preliminary to a funda-
mental task of the Twentieth Century: the insur-
ance to a free people of such a supply of news that
a free government can be successfully administered.

In devoting so long a study to the work of a
single newspaper the authors have proceeded with-
out animus against the Times, and with much ad-
miration for its many excellent qualities. They

THE NEW REPUBLIC

JugUSt 4, 1Q20

trust that the readers of this report, among them
the proprietors and editors of the "Times," will
not regard it as an "exposure" of the Times,
but as a piece of inductive evidence on the problem
of the news. The authors do not wish to imply,
because honestly they do not believe, that the less
conservative press is necessarily more reliable. As
editors of a liberal weekly journal they know from
experience that there are large glass windows in
their own house, and they are keenly aware of the
fact that reliability is harder to attain in the haste
of a daily newspaper than in the greater delibera-
tion of a periodical. If, consequently, nothing were
at stake but the question of praise and blame, if

nothing were to be accomplished beyond a score in
the duel between liberal and conservative, then this
report would not have been made. Something much
greater is at issue, for the reliability of the news
is the premise on; which democracy proceeds.
A great > newspaper is a public service in-
stitution. It occupies a position in public life fully
as important as the school system or the church
or the organs of government. It is entitled to
criticism, and subject to criticism, as they are. The
value of such criticism is directly proportionate to
the steadiness with which the ultimate end of a
better news system is clearly and dispassionately
kept in mind.

I. To the July Offensive

The Russian Revolution occurred during the
war with Germany. It was an event that affected
immediately and directly the lives, the fortunes,
and the dearest hopes of all nations engaged in
the war. The Revolution began during the second
week of March in the year 1917. This date is
highly significant. It is about six weeks after the
German Government had announced unlimited sub-
marine war, and six weeks after the rupture of
diplomatic relations by America. The Allies were
confronted at the same moment by the uncertainty
as to what Russia and what the United States
would do. The United States was in the act of
making up its mind to begin to fight. The
question which dominated all the news out of
Russia was whether the Russians would continue
to fight.

Thus, the circumstances of the Revolution were
not such as to invite impartial inquiry. What the
reader of newspapers was chiefly concerned about
was the fighting power of Russia on the great east-
ern front. He could hardly have expected a cur-
rent history of so vast a revolution. He did ex-
pect, and he had reason to demand, reliable reports
about the morale and strength of Russia's armies.
For on those reports he had to arrive at judgments
of supreme practical importance.

The reliability of the news for the first four
months can fairly be measured by this one con-
crete test: did it give a tolerably true account of
Russia's military strength? Did the news lead to
correct or incorrect expectations?

The actual military power of Russia was tested
against Germany just once. In July 1917, about
three and a half months after the Revolution*
the army attacked on a wide front in Galicia. After
a small initial success the offensive collapsed, the
Germans attacked and pierced the Russian front;
there were mutinies followed by a rout. The of-

ficial Russian Communique (per British Admiralty
per Wireless Press, Petrograd, July 22) said of
the disaster: u This is the result of the instabil-
ity of our troops, disregard for military orders,
and the propaganda of the Maximalists." What
had the news for the weeks from March to July
been?
i

Two Views of Russia's Power

The Times of March 16 published the report
of the successful revolution. Together with ad-
mirably full accounts of events in Petrograd, there
began a series of semi-editorial news dispatches.
Thus (special cable to the New York Times, Lon-
don, March 16) :

"As the situation is explained to The New York
Times correspondent, the revolution simply means
[italics ours] that German sympathizers within the
Russian Government have been overthrown, and that
no chance remains for a separate peace being secretly
arranged with Germany. This, it is felt, is the real
basis of the revolution. . . ."

Such was the official public British theory. In the
same issue Mr. Bonar Law (unidentified dispatch
from London, March 15*) was quoted as saying
that the revolution was due to Russia's pur-
pose to fight the war out. This was, of course,
not a statement of fact, but the expression of a
wish.

This wish was father to much of the news which
followed for several months. Concurrently, there
were, however, other interpretations of the Revolu-
tion. On March 16 the Times published, of

*A dispatch is called "unidentified" when it has no other
reference to source beyond place of origin and date. That
is, the carrying agent is not named.

August 4, IQ20

THE NEW REPUBLIC

course obscurely, an interview with Leon Trotzky:

CALLS PEOPLE WAR WEARY

BUT LEO TROTZKY SAYS THEY DO NOT WANT SEPA-
RATE PEACE

Leo Trotzky, a Russian revolutionist now in
America, said last night in the office of the Novy
Mir .... that the committee which has taken the
place of the deposed Ministry in Russia did not rep-
resent the interests or the aims of the revolutionists,
that it would probably be short lived, and step down
in favor of men who would be more sure to carry for-
ward the democratization of Russia .... That the
cause of the revolution was the unrest of the mass
of the people who were tired of war and that the
real object .... was to end war .... throughout
Europe. They do not favor Germany .... but wish
to stop fighting."

Two days later, issue of March 18 (Berlin
March 17, by wireless to the New York Times
via Tuckerton, N. J.) the Times printed a report
saying that the general opinion in Berlin was that
the new government could not last long and that
the lower classes were wishing for peace at any
price.

There were thus two alternative theories: one
the official Allied theory that Russia would fight;
the other, the theory of an unknown Russian revo-
lutionist in New York and of "general opinion in
Berlin" that Russia would not fight. The bulk of
the news which followed appeared to sustain the
official theory.

Three and a half months elapsed to the
offensive of July. The reader had by that
time perused 107 issues of his paper, practically
all of them containing news of the Rus-
sian Revolution. He had received hints of
profound economic disorder, of demoralization
in the army, and of confused dissatisfaction with
the Allies. He was in a position to guess that the
striking power of Russia was not great, if he read
all the obscurely placed dispatches, read between
the lines of the other dispatches, and sternly de-
clined to let his hopes govern his judgment.

But if he read casually, and chiefly the captions
and emphasized news, the impression of hopeful-
ness, or at least of whistling to keep up hope, would
have been strong. Captions or prominent news on
the following days all of them stated or implied a
Russian will to fight.

March 16 2 , 19, 20, 21, 23, 27, 28, 29, 30 2 — 9
issues, 1 1 items.

2, 10, 12, 14, 18, 19 2 , 20 2 , 21, 22, 24 s ,
28, 29, 30 2 — 13 issues, 17 items.

3, 4, 7, 9, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 2 ,

April
May

?3» 2 5>
items.

28 2 , 29 2 , 31 — 16 issues, 19

June 2, 3, 4 2 , 5, 6 2 , 7, 8 2 , 9, n, 13*, 15, 16,

17, l8 2 , 19, 2I 2 , 22, 23, 24 2 , 25 2 , 27 2 ,

28 2 , 29, 30 2 — 24 issues, 35 items.
Total 62 issues, 82 items.

Thus oftener than every other day for the whole
period the reader was assured that Russia would
fight, or that the Russian army was strong, or that
the difficulties were being surmounted. Ordeal by
battle proved all these assurances to be false.

Was a darker picture ever suggested? It was.
In 49 different issues of the Times there were per-
haps 66 items of pessimistic character. Numer-
ically this seems to strike a tolerably even balance :
Optimistic: 62 issues, 82 items.
Pessimistic: 49 issues, 66 items.

Reputable and Disreputable

But closer examination of what has been included
under "optimistic" and "pessimistic" reveals a far
greater discrepancy than the figures show. Take
for example the first day's news (March 16).
We have called optimistic the unidentified London
dispatch (March 15) quoting Mr. Bonar Law
that the revolution was due to Russia's purpose to
fight the war out; we have also called optimistic the
dispatch from London (March 16) printed on
the first page saying:

"As the situation is explained to The New York
Times correspondent, the revolution simply means
that German sympathizers within the Russian Gov-
ernment have been overthrown . . . ."

Compare these authoritative pronouncements
with the "pessimistic" item printed at the foot of
the fifth column of the fourth page quoting Leo
(sic) Trotzky from his New York office as saying
that the people wished to stop fighting. Trotzky
happened to be right, Mr. Bonar Law and the
people who interpreted the Revolution in London
to the Times correspondent happened to be dead
wrong. But which interpretation was emphasized,
and given the authority of the editors? The of-
ficial and the optimistic, of course, against the ob-
scure and the unpleasant. The unsatisfactory view
was not suppressed, but it was ignored or played
down. This is characteristic of the news of the
period we are considering. The values placed upon
news items were wrong, wrong by the ultimate test
of battle.

It is easy to see how this came about. There
was an initial desire, shared by the editors and
readers of the Times, to have Russia fight, to se-
cure the military assistance of Russia without open-
ing up contentious questions of war aims, to smoth-
er pacifist agitation. Conflicting estimates of Rus-
sian strength and weakness came to the Times office.
One series was optimistic. The other pessimistic.
The optimistic series had the right of way.

THE NEW REPUBLIC

August 4 } ig2o

Then, too, the sources of the optimistic reports
were such as to commend themselves more readily
to the credulity of men who have high respect for
prestige. Out of 82 optimistic items approximately
49 emanated directly from official sources includ-
ing the Provisional Government, the American
State Department, Ambassador Francis, the Root
mission, etc. The remaining 33 are from sources
including 4 Renter, 1 Harold Williams, 2 Herbert
Bailey, 1 Special New York Times, 1 London
Times, 5 London Daily Chronicle, 13 unidenti-
fied, the rest scattering.

When there were at least 49 official assurances
and thirty odd more from sources of recognized
authority in a period of 107 days it is not surpris-
ing that the net tone of the news about Russia was
optimistic. It is even less surprising when the
character of the 66 pessimistic items is examined.
If we add together the distinctly unpopular and
therefore incredible sources, that is the German, the
Bolshevik, the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers'
Deputies, and the items tagged and peppered with
epithets, the total is 36.

Thus out of 82 optimistic items, 49 are from
friendly official sources, and the rest from respect-
able ones; out of 66 pessimistic items 36 are dis-
tinctly disreputable, and of the thirty remaining
practically none contains more than a fragmentary
hint of the real difficulty iri Russia as later revealed
by the collapse of the July offensive, the first Bol-
shevik rebellion, and the ultimate fall of the Pro-
visional Government.

It remains to be noted however that the optimis-
tic items carried their own antidote to the sophisti-
cated reader. The very fact that it was necessary
to proclaim the solidarity and strength of Russia
every other day was a suspicious fact. Reiteration
emphasized doubt, and trained readers were ena-
bled to reach conclusions quite opposite from those
insisted upon in the general intent of the news. But
what chance had they of persuading the casual
reader that Russian affairs required his earnest
attention. Was the casual reader, absorbed in
our own war activities, not told about every
other day that he could afford to be compla-
cent?

11. The Prelude to Bolshevism

Misleading Optimism

The military weakness of Russia was clear to
all observers on the spot after what Kerensky calls
the "Tarnopol disgrace" of July 19. The condition
of the army was explained by the Russian official
communique (British Admiralty per Wireless Press,
Petrograd, July 22) ; the condition behind the lines
was indicated by the abortive Bolshevik rebellion
of July 16-18. The most obvious facts no longer
justified the complacency which had dominated the
news. "Something" had to be done by somebody.

There were, roughly speaking, three parties con-
tending for power; the Left led by the Bolsheviks,
the center led by Kerensky, and the Right led by
someone in the role of a Dictator-Savior. The
Bolshevik uprising of July was suppressed by
Kerensky's government For the next two months
the contenders, on the surface at least, are the Right
and the Center parties. The Kornilov rebellion in
September was the first of the many efforts of the
Right to establish a Dictator-Savior. The rebellion
was easily put down by Kerensky. The government
had thus survived first an attack from the Left, and
then an attack from the Right. But within a few
days of the suppression of Kornilov there is un-
mistakable evidence of the rise of the third power
— that of the Bolsheviki. On September 19, six
days after the General's capitulation, the Petrograd
Soviet passed from Menshevik and Social Revolu-

tionary control into Bolshevik hands, and the next
day (September 20) the Moscow Soviet for the
first time refused a vote of confidence in the gov-
ernment of Kerensky. In five weeks that govern-
ment had fallen.

Every shred of justification for complacent op-
timism had ceased by July 19. The correspondents
in Russia abandoned it Mr. Harold Williams,
in the Times of July 28, speaks of "this hour of
national disgrace . . . how can Russia be saved . . .
the shameful collapse of (the) armies." But
though the Times of July 23 had printed a three
column head saying:

MUTINY ON RUSSIAN FRONT SPREADS

WHOLE LINE GIVING WAY

Nevertheless the Times of July 28 carried the
following dispatch from Washington: "The State
Department has advices by cable that the defeat
of the Russian Army on the Galician front has had
a wholesome effect in Petrograd."

Meantime the headlines showed a continued op-
timism, as the following samples show:

July 30

ARMY NOW RECOVERING

July 31 RUSSIAN ARMIES NOW STRIKING

BACK

Aug. 1 RUSSIANS THROW GERMANS BACK

August 4, IQ20

THE NEW REPUBLIC

Aug. 2

Aug. 4

Aug. 5

Aug. 7

RUSSIANS ATTACK ON GALICIAN
FRONT

MINIMIZES CABINET CRISIS

ROOT HAS FAITH RUSSIA WILL
STAND

TO FIGHT ON, SAYS FRANCIS

NO EVIDENCE THAT RUSSIA INTENDS TO

QUIT

Aug.

8

Aug.

9

Aug.

9

Aug.

9

Aug.

H

SEES RUSSIA SOON AS STRONG AS
EVER

WE CAN DEPEND ON RUSSIA WITH
AID FROM US, ROOT SAYS

RUSSIANS AGAIN ATTACK IN GALICIA

KORNILOV FIRM FOR WAR

RUSSO - RUMANIANS TAKE i,ioo
TEUTONS

Aug. is PRESS TEUTONS BACK ON RUMAN-
IAN FRONT

Aug. 15 TELLS KING GEORGE RUSSIA WILL

FIGHT ON

Aug. 18 RUSSO - RUMANIANS REPEL ALL

ATTACKS

Aug. 20

RUSSIANS REPULSE ATTACKS EVERY-
WHERE

Thus from the military rout in July to the verge
of the Kornilov conspiracy, on the average once
every other day, a certain show of optimism is
made. It is derived from official reports of minor
engagements, from advices to the State Department,
and from the Russian Government. The persistent
will to believe is illustrated by the Times of July
24. The captions read as follows:

RUSSIANS TAKE 1,000 PRISONERS

BREAK GERMAN LINE IN VILNA REGION
DESPITE DEFECTION OF SOME REGIMENTS

BUT COLLAPSE IN GALICIA

WHOLE FRONT DOWN TO THE CAR-
PATHIANS IN RETREAT— TARNOPOL GONE

Is it not just fq say that the newspaper is a mis-
leading optimist which regards the capture of 1,000
prisoners as of greater significance than the col-
lapse of the whole front down to the Carpathians?
It was not always possible, of course, to extract
hope out of a desperate situation, but on fourteen
days out of twenty-two the caption writer succeeds.
On the following dates he announces reverses: July
20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 28, 31, Aug. 3, 17, 23, 24. No

doubt there were minor successes, but the net
disaster was indisputable. Therefore the interlard-
ing of the news of big defeats with little resistances
and verbal optimism must be described as confusing
in its total effect. The presentation of news values
is eccentric, and distorts the main picture.

The Quest of a Dictator-Savior

But parallel with all this runs a great theme of
the Russian news: the theme of the Dictator-
Savior and the strong man. This quest appears
many times throughout the three years of the re-
volution dealt with in this study. It culminates as
all the world knows, in Kolchak, Denikin, and
Yudenitch, but it emerges long before. The first
choice of the correspondents, curiously enough, is
Kerensky himself. The faith in Kerensky is short-
lived, but strenuous while it lasts :

July 24 KERENSKY MADE DICTATOR
OF RUSSIA

PEASANTS YEARN FOR NEW MONARCHY

"Kerensky, who possesses all Peter the Great's
energy and twice his wisdom, is the national hero
.... It fa new Czardom] would give the imagina-
tive peasants some one in whom to place that loyalty
which they could never accord with the same enthus-
iasm to a blackcoated President." (Herbert Bailey,
Special to the New York Times, Petrograd, July 21.)

That Kerensky did not altogether disdain the
role of strong man is indicated by his interview
to the Associated Press (Issue of July 25) which
the Times heads :

KERENSKY'S RULE TO BE MERCILESS

WILL BEAT RUSSIA INTO UNITY WITH BLOOD AND
IRON, IF NECESSARY, HE SAYS

Mr. Harold Williams has at this time bjegun to
cast about for a savior. Being better informed
than Mr. Bailey, he has never taken very seriously
the dictatorship of Kerensky. In the Times of July
26, he notes that the Council of Workmen's
and Soldiers' Delegates attached a string to
Kerensky's unlimited power by demanding an
accounting not less than twice a week. And two
days later he is aware of "the brave commander
on the southwestern front, General Kornilov."
Other correspondents present other guesses as to
where the saving force is to be found. Thus in
the issue of August 31, the London Times cor-
respondent (Moscow, August 28), makes what
appears to be the first sketch of the geographical
area on which the counter-revolutions of Kolchak
and Denikin were later organized. Over a year
before the event he discovers that

"The Knights of St. George, representing 8o,ooo,-

8

THE NEW REPUBLIC

JugUSt sf, IQ20

ooo acres, (sic) have combined in military leagues
.... There is a solid (italics ours) block far ex-
ceeding in size and population the combined strength
of the Central Empires. From Lake Baikal to the
Dniester, from the Don to the Persian border, loyal
sons of Russia are ready to rise against the forces of
disintegration and defeat."

The Times heads this dispatch:

GREAT NEW POWER RISING IN RUSSIA
No less interesting and prophetic is the appear-
ance of the first argument for external military
intervention in Russia. While Messrs. Bailey and
Williams and the London Times correspondent are
looking for loyal Russians, the French authorities
are thinking of the Japanese army. The Times of
August 23, in a box on the first page, prints an
unidentified dispatch from Paris, August 22, which
says:

"The Figaro today asks if the moment has not ar-
rived for Japan to take further steps in the war ....

The Petit Journal, in an editorial along the same . .
lines . . . .adds that never will the Japanese troops
be more needed on the Russian front than they are
today." [Italics ours.]

The reader will note the common inspiration of
these French newspapers and the synchronism of
the publication with the bad news of the German
offensive against Riga. With such estimates of
the Russian problem in their minds, and with such
prepossessions, it is not surprising that the news-
men were completely taken in by the Kornilov
fiasco.

The Kornilov Rebellion

The historical evidence about the affair is still
a matter of hot dispute, and there is much mystery
about the role of the various personalities who
figured prominently in the intrigue. This aspect
of the affair the correspondents did not report at
length, and could not have been expected to report.
But the facts which concerned the American reader
were simple. Did Kornilov represent the power
of Russia? Were those who gathered about him
the effective substance of the nation? Was he, in
brief, the real thing, or a flash in the pan?

He was a distinguished officer of the General
Staff, a Cossack, who had been appointed com-
mander-in-chief by Kerensky himself after the de-
feat of July. According to his own proclamation,*
issued September 9, his purpose in rebelling against
the Provisional Government of Kerensky and start-
ing to march on Petrograd, was "the preservation
of a Great Russia." He swore u to carry over the
people, by means of a victory over the enemy, to
the Constituent Assembly at which it will decide its
own fate and choose the order of the new state
life." He was, in other words, to be a temporary

military dictator acting as a savior of his country.
Kerensky in a proclamation*, also issued September
9, denounced him as a counter-revolutionist, rep-
resenting "a desire of some circles of Russian
society to take advantage of the grave condition
of the state for the purpose of establishing in the
country a state of authority in contradiction to the
conquests of the revolution." The rebellion was
proclaimed on September 9. By September 12 the
Associated Press correspondent in Petrograd de-
scribed the coup as a failure. Kornilov was sup-
pressed practically without bloodshed.

Nevertheless the special correspondents showed
their credulity about the possibilities of a military
dictator. As early as July 31, the reporter of the
London Morning Post cables (New York Times
of August 3) that "from intimations I have re-
ceived I gather that the fighting Generals have
placed before Kerensky what amounts to an ulti-
matum from the officers of Russia's armies." Note
that the soldiers of Russia's armies do not appear.
On August 29 the Times carried, under headlines
announcing u Hailed as Russia's Savior," ^ Mos-
cow dispatch reporting that "at present the name
of General Kornilov is on every tongue." Mr.
Harold Williams, to be sure, noted in a cable pub-
lished the next day that the executives of the Coun-
cil of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates refused
to stand or to greet Kornilov at the Moscow Con-
gress.

But the bulk of the dispatches during the two
weeks following were highly optimistic. The
counter-revolutionists were described as riding on
■to glory. "Great New Power Rising in Russia,"
said a headline in the Times, August 31. "Kor-
nilov commands confidence in military circles,"
cabled Mr. Charles H. Grasty on September n,
"not only on his record as an officer, but because he
is a Cossack. This is the tribe around which intel-
ligent opinion in Western Europe has been cluster-
ing hopefully for several months past." [Italics
ours.]

News of the actual revolt was cabled that same
day from London. "There is yet no indication of
General Kornilov's intentions," said a special dis-
patch to the Times, "but it is known that the Cos-
sacks, the backbone of the Russian Army, are his
strong adherents."

Yet two days later the Kornilov revolt was a
confessed fiasco. "Kornilov Gives Up, Revolt
Ends," said a headline in the Times, September 14.
Where, one wonders, were the Cossacks who three
days before were "known" in London to be Kor-
nilov's "strong adherents" and "the backbone of
the Russian Army"? A fortnight later Mr. Har-
old Williams, in a special to the Times from Petro-

* Printed in "The Prelude to Bolshevism," by A. F.
Kerensky; Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1919.

AugUSt 4, IQ20

THE NEW REPUBLIC

grad, dated September 26, blurted out the follow-
ing:

"The Kornilov affair has intensified mutual dis-
trust and completed the work of destruction. The
Government is shadowy and unreal, and what per-
sonality it had has disappeared before the menace
of the democratic conference. Whatever power there
is, is again concentrated in the hands of the Soviets,
and, as always happens when the Soviets secure a
monopoly of power, the influence of the Bolsheviks
has increased enormously." [Italics ours.]

So runs the obituary by a friend of the first
Dictator-Savior.

In view of the fact that the Soviets seized the
government six weeks after this dispatch was filed,
Mr. Williams had reported news of the first im-
portance. Does the news for the next six weeks,
the last weeks before the triumph of Bolshevism,
follow the lead given so clearly by Mr. Williams?

The End of Kerensky

The news out of Russia for the first ten days
of October does not minimize the increasing diffi-
culties of the existing regime. But the news com-
ment out of Washington on October 10 (unidenti-
fied dispatch from Washington, October 9), is this:

"Russian diplomats here appear to be convinced
now that the Bolsheviks have been finally over-
thrown and that Premier Kerensky is once more
firmly established in the supreme power.

"It was said at the embassy today that the Bol-
sheviks were greatly discouraged by their first at-
tempt to obtain control of the Government, on July
8, when disturbances caused by them were sup-
pressed by the provisional authorities, and again dur-
ing the Kornilov movement, when the Bolsheviks
seized upon that occasion to overthrow the coalition
administration. The action of the democratic con-
ference in upholding the principle of a coalition
Cabinet was asserted to reveal the total defeat of
the extreme radicals."

Nevertheless the correspondents in Russia are
agreed as to the crisis, thus:

Oct. 13 RUSSIAN CABINET IN HARD POSI-
TION
Oct. 15 DISORDERS GROWING AMONG THE

PEASANTS

Oct. 16 RUSSIAN FLEET IS DEMORALIZED
Oct. 2$ "The evening newspapers which publish
the program for the meeting of the Central Council
of Soldiers' and Workmen's Delegates on Nov. 2
are filled with rumors of a Bolsheviki demonstra-
tion and an attempt to seize the Government. . . ."

Oct. 28 RUSSIAN ROADS PARALIZED

HANDLED LESS TRAFFIC IN SUMMER THAN
THEY DID LAST WINTER

Nov. 2 This was the day on which the Times

printed briefly Kerensky's historic interview to the
Associated Press: (Petrograd, November 1.)
(The longer text was printed November 3.)

RUSSIA WORN OUT, ALLIES MUST TAKE UP
BURDEN, KERENSKY SAYS
But the State Department in Washington knew
better: It issued a statement that:

"There has been absolutely nothing in the dispatches
received by the Department of State from Russia, nor
in information derived from any other source what-
ever, to justify the impression created by the Washing-
ton Post to-day .... that Russia is out of the conflict."

Nov. 3 (Special to New York Times, Washing-
ton, November 2.)

"Russia is not out of the war. She is to make
no separate peace. The Russian Embassy and the
State Department made this clear today."

Nov. 4 From London, Kerensky's interview was
deprecated. (London, November 3.)

"The Petrograd correspondent of The Daily
Telegraph, who is now in London, writes: 'Premier
Kerensky's statement seems to have been taken a lit-
tle too seriously in some quarters.' "

The Graphic (London) is quoted: "We should
hate to regard the statements as authentic. They
have the ring of pro-German propaganda!* [Italics
ours.]

Nov. 6 On this day, the Times printed obscure-
ly on the fourth column of the fourth page the fol-
lowing news of world-wide importance:

BOLSHEVIK PERIL ACUTE

RUSSIAN RADICAL PACIFISTS

EXPECT TO COME INTO POWER

(London, Nov. 5). "At a meeting in Petrograd
on Saturday, as reported in an Exchange Telegraph
dispatch from that city, representatives of the whole
Petrograd garrison passed under the guidance and
influence of the Bolsheviks. . . ."

The issues of November 7 and 8 carry the news
of the Bolshevik Revolution, culminating on No-
vember 9, with the six-column headline on the first
page:

REVOLUTIONISTS SEIZE PETROGRAD;
KERENSKY FLEES

PLEDGE IS GIVEN TO SEEK "AN IMMEDIATE PEACE"

The reader who had ignored the State Depart-
ment and the Russian Embassy for the six weeks
preceding, and had read the news dispatches from
Russia, had no reason to be surprised. The reader
who had trusted official pronouncements was mis-
led.

The Provisional Government having been over-
thrown by the Soviets, he was concerned in the
weeks that followed, first, as to whether the
Bolsheviks would last, second, as to what they
would do about the war.

10

THE NEW REPUBLIC

August 4, 1920

in. The Withdrawal of Russia

Would the Soviets Last?

Naturally there was doubt as to the stability of
this strange new regime. Russian experts in Amer-
ica were at once interviewed:
Nov. 9. Herman Bernstein:

"It can't win .... for Lenin and Trotzky are both
extremely unpopular. They had a better chance
last July .... the popular execration directed against
Lenin .... was such as to convince me that he will
never be able to dominate the Russian people."

Mr. Alexander Sakhnovsky, Agent of the
Zemstvos :

"A man like Prince Lvov would be considerably
more useful, and I believe, from the reports I
receive, that sentiment in Russia is setting in that
direction. As for the Grand Duke Michael, he has
always been very popular . . . ."

A special dispatch to the Times (Washington,
November 8) declared:

"No doubt was expressed in diplomatic circles that
the Allied Powers would recognize any Government
formed to oppose the Bolsheviki .... Moscow was
regarded as the probable choice for the provisional
capital, because all the elements there have been in
sympathy with the Government as against the ex-
tremist Socialists. Moscow also is held to be a more
purely Russian city . . . ."

The question of the stability of the Bolshevik
regime is of course a fundamental question of the
Russian news. Correct information on that point
is the premise of correct information on many
other great themes; the relation of Bolshevism to
Germany, the value and the possibility of military
intervention, the prospects of the White Generals,
the reality of the Red Peril, and the problem
of peace. For if the regime was temporary, then
its diplomacy as against Germany and the Allies
was not particularly significant, the possibility of
successful intervention was greater, the prospects
of the White Generals were brighter, the menace
was smaller, and the problem of peace might be
postponed. If on the other hand, the Soviet power
was firmly rooted in the Russian people, then it
was Russia, and its diplomacy mattered enormous-
ly, intervention was impracticable, the prospects of
the generals poor, the menace worth serious con-
sideration, and peace a pressing matter.

The Soviet Government was still in existence in
March, 1920, when this study closes. It had lasted
29 months up to that time and had brought all of
Central Russia from the Arctic Ocean to the Cau-
casus, as well as Siberia, at least to Lake Baikal,
under its jurisdiction. Whether it was a good

regime or an intolerable one is not the question, nor
in fact has it ever been the important question in
America's relation to Russia. What mattered
fundamentally in all those months of grave de-
cision was whether it was an enduring regime. The
historic fact is that the regime did endure for the
whole time we are now discussing. It may fall
any day; it may last for a generation. That is of
no consequence. News reports in 1917, 1918,
1919, and early 1920 that the Soviets are about
to collapse, or have collapsed, or will collapse
within a few weeks is false news) and it will not
be true news if the Soviet regime should collapse
late in 1920 or thereafter.

That the Soviet government could last only for
the moment was one of the most insistent of all
themes in the news of Russia. Within a few days
after the November coup it had made its first ap-
pearance. On November 13 (19 17) the Times
published a special dispatch from Washington, as-
serting

"All doubt that the Maximalists in Petrograd will

be deposed has disappeared in Government and

diplomatic quarters here."

It seemed only to be a question of who would fol-
low next:

"Officials are now debating whether Premier Ker-
ensky, General Kornilov, or some other leader will
take charge of the Government to rise out of the
ashes of Maximalist authority. The complete over-
throw of the Bolsheviki is predicted."

Many times, in the months which followed, that
overthrow was predicted. No other note appeared
more faithfully and with emphasis so certain. In
the two years from November, 1917, to Novem-
ber, 19 19, no less than ninety-one times was it
stated that the Soviets were nearing their rope's
end, or actually had reached it

In arriving at this computation no count is made
of the ordinary reports that Russia was in chaos —
though such reports of course implied a weaken-
ing in the prestige and authority of the government
attempting to wield power. What is counted, in
arriving at the figure ninety-one, are reports more
explicitly reporting an early break-up. For in-
stance, thirty different times the power of the Sovi-
ets was definitely described as being on the wane.
Twenty times there was news of a serious counter-
revolutionary menace. Five times was the explicit
statement made that the regime was certain to col-
lapse. And fourteen times that collapse was said
to be in progress. Four times Lenin and Trotzky
were planning flight. Three times they had al-
ready fled. Five times the Soviets were "totter-
ing." Three times their fall was imminent." Once

August 4, IQ20

THE NEW REPUBLIC

ii

desertions in the Red army had reached propor-
tions alarming to the government. Twice Lenin
planned retirement; once he had been killed; and
three times he was thrown in prison.

Insistently appearing in the news, the steady
repetition in these reports left its inevitable im-
pression on the reader. How trustworthy were the
sources from which this material was drawn?

The smaller part of it came via the shortest
route available: that is, as the observation of men
or of some group of men who, whatever their per-
sonal bias — even though it be the bias that might
accompany a salary coming from some rival Rus-
sian faction — were at least cited by name as au-
thority for the news. That method accounts for
twenty of the dispatches tallied in the present list.
On certain other occasions there was an official or
pseudo-official source implied. Thus we have "ad-
vices to the State Department, 1 ' "officials of the
State Department," and "government and diplo-
matic sources in Washington" — each quoted in one
instance. Six more dispatches Avere drawn from
statements or publications credited to the Soviet
government itself. That brings the total up to
twenty-nine, all accounted for with sources possess-
ing some measure of authority. Sixty-two are left.
And for those sixty-two there is less that can be
said.

The source of information, where cited, is
vague at best: "sources familiar with the Russian
situation in its many phases" (London) ; a Stock-
holm dispatch to Paris; the opinion of some man
or group of men unnamed; "reports reaching Lon-
don from Petrograd"; "reports reaching London
from Peking and Copenhagen"; dispatches from
Copenhagen to the Exchange Telegraph Company,
London; correspondents of German newspapers,
of Swedish papers and of Danish papers; unidenti-
fied dispatches from Reval, from Geneva, from
Stockholm and from Helsingfors etc. Individual-
ly the sending of a news dispatch based upon sec-
ond-, third- or fourth-hand authority was a natural
enough procedure. A correspondent in Copen-
hagen, perhaps, saw in some Danish journal a re-
port coming from Stockholm that someone else
believed counter-revolution menaced the Soviet au-
thority. That was "news," he judged, worth cab-
ling to America. Collectively, however, the re-
ports have no such incidental character. From
the first days of Soviet power they have paint-
ed a picture which the event itself has proved to
be misleading. They have prophecied what did
not happen. But they have left, in the minds of
those who read them, an effect of real impor-
tance.

Later themes find expression. At times the Red
Peril momentarily overshadows the conception of
Soviet power as an institution verging on collapse.
But over a space of many months, recurring like the

major theme in a Wagnerian opera, comes this note
of Soviet impermanency. What its net effect has
been is plain. It has nourished the policy of lais-
sez-faire. Creating the impression that a few days
more and there would be no Soviet power left to
worry over, it helped postpone from month to
month an insistence that in the face of definite fact
the Allied statesmen must revaluate their policy of
indecision, intervention and blockade.

During the Parleys at Brest-
Litovsk

The midwinter of 19 17-18 is worth more de-
tailed examination, because it has a character of
its own.

News items suggesting that the regime was tem-
porary appeared as follows. This tabulation is
more inclusive than that above for reasons of fair-
ness which will be evident. It is more inclusive in
that items merely suggesting weakness are ad-
mitted, whereas they are excluded above.

November 9 4 , io 2 , n 2 , 12 4 , 13 4 , 16, 17, 19 2 .
December 2, 10, n 2 , 12, 17, 19, 21, 24, 27.
January 9, 10.

February 2 2 , 7, 8, 9, 18 2 , 19, 20, 21 2 , 23, 25, 28.
Totals :

Items in November 20

" " December 10

" " January 2

" " February 14

What strikes the eye immediately is the scarcity
of the items in January. The first of the two items
appeared January 9. It is a special to the New
York Times from Harold Williams (Petrograd,
January 6) headed:

RUSSIA SEEN ON VERGE OF UTTER COL-
LAPSE

PETROGRAD FACES FAMINE

AND PARALYSIS, WHILE

ANARCHY REIGNS IN PROVINCES

The second item on January 10 is a dispatch
from the Petrograd correspondent of the London
Times, headed:

CRIME IS RAMPANT IN PETROGRAD

BURGLARY, ROBBERY AND MURDER COMMON— FOOD
SUPPLY IS GIVING OUT

Within a few days this picture of Russia was dis-
puted. Cables from Stockholm, London and Petro-
grad reported that the Soviets had put their hands
on fresh stores of food from the Ukraine, that they
had successfully crushed a counter-revolution, and
that in the opinion of Sir George Buchanan (British
Ambassador) Lenin was firm in the saddle, not
to be overthrown for the present. The Soviets

12

THE NEW REPUBLIC

August 4, IQ20

seemed to be gaining ground. In fact, on January
29 headlines in the Times reported

ROMANOFFS AS BOLSHEVIKI

PROF. ROSS HEARS EX-CZAR'S DAUGHTERS
ARE CONVERTED TO CAUSE.

And this was the word that followed:

"The Bolshevist movement is sincere, Professor
Ross said, springing from the heart of Russia itself
and having as its object the liberation of the people,
the establishment of world peace, and the institution
of a system of pure industrial socialism."

Thus the two dispatches indicating serious weak-
ness, are neutralized by news that the Soviets are
fairly strong. November and December preceding
report great weakness; so do the months following.
What is there that is peculiar about the month of
January, 19 1 8 ?

Trotzky was debating with the Germans
at Brest-Litovsk and defying them; Lloyd
George made his speech proposing a con-
ciliatory peace; President Wilson announced
the Fourteen Points, with a most sympathetic ref-
erence to Russia. Is there any connection between
these events and the rather favorable view taken
in the news of Russia's stability? Let us examine
the manner in which the peace negotiations between
Germany and Russia were handled.

During November, statements by Lenin and
Trotzky appear disavowing the idea of a separ-
ate peace, (November 24, 26). On the other
hand Mr. Harold Williams states categorically
within three weeks of the revolution (Times of
November 24, special dispatch from Petrograd,
November 22, delayed) that the Russian masses
were forcing the hands of the Bolsheviks by de-
manding the execution of promises. In the issue
of December 5 Mr. Williams says (Special to
the Times from Petrograd, December 3) that:

"The Bolshevist movement is by no means simple.
It is a curious jumble of conflicting elements ranging
from the purest idealism to German intrigue and
reactionary monarchism. These elements are tem-
porarily agreed in a peace policy, and derive their
authority from the strong pacifist tendencies of the
soldiers and Socialists and the pacifist mood of the
workmen, ... In any case, the fact must be faced
that, one way or the other, Russia, despite the will
of the best elements of the population, will have to
retire from the war. . . . We cannot contemptuously
abandon this whole, great people because of a tem-
porary fit of madness, the causes of which lie deep in
the history of years of oppression." (Italics ours.)

Mr. Williams in subsequent dispatches emphasiz-
ed the basic demoralization of Russia's will to fight.
But as the parleys at Brest-Litovsk open, hope re-
vives with Trotzky in the center of the stage. Some
of the captions run as follows:

Dec, 23 RUSSIA WONT BOW BEFORE THE
KAISER, TROTZKY INSISTS

Dec. 26 TROTZKY PROTESTS AGAINST GER-
MANS SHIFTING TROOPS

Dec. 27 REPORT LENIN GIVES GERMANS
PEACE ULTIMATUM

Dec 30 TERMS OF PEACE ROUSE THE FURY
OF PAN GERMANS

Jan. 3 RUSSIAN STAND PLEASES LONDON

Jan. 4 ALLIES NOW MAY RECOGNIZE LENIN

Jan. 5 TROTZKY OPENED EYES OF GER-
MANS

Jan. 7 BOLSHEVIKI'S STAND SHOCKS THE

TEUTONS

Jan. 7 BOLSHEVIKI MAY HELP ALLIES BEST

Jan. 11 BOLSHEVISM SEEN AS NEW RELIGION

Jan. 17 GREAT BRITAIN DECIDES TO TREAT
WITH LENIN

The optimistic and friendly quality of these re-
ports was no doubt a reflection of official opinion
in England, and of Trotzky' s own opinions. The
spell of Trotzky's defiance at Brest-Litovsk per-
vades the news. Even Mr. Harold Williams is
temporarily under it, though he had written earlier
with hard realism that Russia would not and could
not fight. Mr. Arthur Ransome was even more
thoroughly spell-bound. Trotzky was in good odor
most of January, 19 18. So good, in fact, that on
January 20 the Times reported:

WHAT TROTZKY DID
WHEN IN NEW YORK

INVESTIGATION FOR DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE FAILS
TO SHOW HE RECEIVED GERMAN MONEY

". . . . Attorney General Merton F. Lewis insti-
tuted an investigation as to Trotzky's activities dur-
ing that part of 191 7 when he was in New York.
The investigation was made at the request of the
Department of Justice in Washington. Deputy At-
torney General Alfred R. Becker was in charge, and
the report of the investigation which is now com-
pleted is to the effect that no evidence was obtained
to support any charge that Trotzky ever received any
German money while in New York."

Two days later, however, Mr. Harold Williams in
a special dispatch from Petrograd interrupted the
optimistic series by reporting that the Bolsheviks
were a symbol of volcanic forces, that they were
not pacifists, and that they had stopped the war with
Germany only, to kindle civil war.

August 4, ig20

THE NEW REPUBLIC

*3

Faith in the Bolsheviks Dis-
appears

Hope that the Bolsheviks would somehow con-
tinue to fight faded rapidly by the end of January,
and terminated abruptly on February 12 by the
declaration of the Soviet government that the war
was over. A new period opens almost immediate-
ly. It is the period of the preparation for inter-
vention.

Up to the time when Russia went out of the war
the dominant tendency of the news is to be opti-
mistic about the government in power. In their
turn, Lvov, Milukov, Kerensky, Kornilov and
Trotzky had been reported as favorable to the
Allied cause. Even the Bolsheviks, denounced
while in opposition to Kerensky, were treated with-
out obvious prejudice once they were established,
and while they were still defying Germany. The
judgment of reporters and caption-writers was
governed, on the whole uniformly, by the will to
believe that Russia would assist the Allies. That
the events falsified this optimism again and again
shows how strongly the wish intruded upon objec-
tive judgment. For while reporters in Russia did
advert on numerous occasions to the basic demoral-
ization of the war-weary people, those dispatches
flickered and disappeared in the prevailing desire
to maintain an eastern front. That this motive was
stronger initially than any hatred of Bolshevism,
any fear of the Red Peril, is shown rather emphat-
ically by the very friendly character of the news
during the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk, The in-
formal recognition of the Soviet Government by
Great Britain, the idealization of Russia contained
in President Wilson's address of January 8, ela-
tion over the strikes in Germany and Austria, and a
good deal of war-weariness in Western Europe, —
all coincide with news about Russia which is, to
say the least, sympathetic to the Soviets.

From the Revolution of March, 19 17, to the
final collapse of the eastern front in early Febru-
ary, 19 1 8, it is just to say that a strong bias is re-
flected in the presentation of the news. It is the
bias of hope, and this bias persistently plays down
news of Russia's weakness and plays up announce-
ments and events which sustain hope. There were
plenty of exceptions, of course, and we have tried
faithfully to give them full value in what has pre-
ceded. We assert nothing more than the existence
of a dominant tendency in the general course of the
news, a tendency contradicted by indisputable
events. Up to this point at least, we do not believe
that on the face of the news any case appears point-
ing to the existence of an organized propaganda
working behind the censorship. The evidence, in
our opinion, disproves such a charge, and vindi-
cates the good will of those who prepared and re-
ported the news. The difficulties revealed are pro-
fessional: where the news is misleading in the net
effect it is because the emphasis has been misplaced
by the powerful passions of a great war.

The period which follows the withdrawal of
Russia shows a radical change in the character of
the news. In order to understand that change it is
necessary to recall that the final loss of Russia was
a frightful disappointment, that the German of-
fensive of March was the supreme military crisis
of the war. The period we are approaching now
transcends all others in its desperate significance.
It begins with what looked to the western world like
downright betrayal, for the Allies stood face to
face with a Germany freed from Russian pressure
on the eastern front. These facts bear heavily on
the quality of the news which follows. The pat-
riotic men who were engaged in furnishing the
news about Russia had hoped in vain through
twelve anxious months. That the threshold of
their credulity was almost immediately lowered
should surprise no one.

IV. The Appeal for Intervention

On February 12, 19 18, the Times published
its obituary on Russia as a belligerent. On Feb-
ruary 26 appeared the famous Grasty interview
with Foch, (Special to the New York Times,
Paris, February 25) :

"If America will look ahead I am sure she will see
another field in which she can render immense service
without relaxing her efforts on the western front.
She should give her attention to the Orient

"Germany is walking through Russia. America
and Japan, who are in a position to do so, should go
to meet her in Siberia. Both for the war and after
America and Japan must furnish military and eco-

nomic resistance to German penetration. There
should be immediate steps in this important matter.
Don't wake up after it is too late. Don't wait until
the enemy has too much of a start. . . ."

Japanese and British marines landed at Vladi-
vostok early in April, and British troops on the
Murman peninsula. Towards the end of May the
Czechoslovak troops in Russia were in conflict with
the Soviets. In July American troops were landed
in Vladivostok; in August American troops were
landed in Archangel. On August 4, 191 8, the
State Department issued its famous and puzzling
pronunciamento, saying: first that "military inter-

i 4 THE NEW

vention in Russia would be more likely to add to
the present sad confusion there than to cure it. . . ."
Second, that "military action is admissible in Rus-
sia now only to render such protection and help as
is possible to the Czechoslovaks against the armed
Austrian and German prisoners who are attacking
them. . . ." Third, "to steady any efforts at self-
government or self-defense in which the Russians
themselves may be willing to accept assistance. . . ."
Fourth, "to guard military stores. . . ." Fifth, to
safeguard "the country to the rear of the westward-
moving Czechoslovaks . . . ."

Five and a half months intervened between the
withdrawal of Russia from the war and the formal
acceptance of the policy of intervention by the
American Government. As early as April there
had been some intervention, but August 4 marks
the public and official triumph of the idea. What
was the character of the news in these months?
Ignoring all editorials, magazine features, etc., of
which the volume was very large, selecting only
from the news, we have noted about 285 items
bearing upon the problem of intervention.

We have classified the 285 items according to
the theme they illustrate. Thus :

German Domination of Russia 49

Russian Anti-Bolshevism 34

Japanese Intervention 69

Allied Intervention 48

American Intervention 26

The Czechoslovaks 31

The Red Peril 5

Prisoners in Siberia Peril 3

Relief for Russia 3

Japanese in Peril 2

Guarding Stores 2

Anti-Intervention . . . 13

That the Red Peril should have played so in-
significant a part in the news at a time when the
debate about intervention in Russia's internal af-
fairs was hottest is one of the curiosities of this
history. It is also one of the most significant things
about it. The notion of a fundamental antagonism
between the Soviet government and the American
is not insisted upon until after American troops
are on Russian soil. (See Section V of this re-
port.)

The great reason for military action displayed
in the news is the German domination of Russia.
It is Foch's reason in February; it is Senator King's
reason in his Senate resolution of June 10th; it is
Mr. Taft's reason the same day. (Times of June
ii.) The argument was simple : the eastern
front is gone. Germany has an unblocked path
through Russia and Siberia to the Pacific, through
Russia and the Caucasus to India. Germany will
organize Russian resources and perhaps Russian
man power; then she will win the war. Somewhere
or other an eastern front must be reestablished.

REPUBLIC

AugUSt 4, IQ20

The Bolsheviks will not and cannot do this. The
problem is therefore to be solved by Allied, Jap-
anese, and American soldiers cooperating with Rus-
sian anti-Bolsheviks. The providential rebellion of
the Czechoslovaks in May, June and July provides
the nucleus.

This argument dominates the news in the Times
up to August, and more or less until the armistice
with Germany. The armistice, of course, destroy-
ed the argument But the intervention continued.
After the armistice intervention is justified by the
Red Peril; before the armistice it is justified by the
German Peril. Little fighting was done by Ameri-
can troops in Russia before the armistice. These
troops went to fight Germany and remained to fight
Russians.

The German Peril

The news looking towards intervention is thick-
est from just after Foch's interview to just before
the great German offensive of March 21. It de-
clines rather suddenly after the President had veto-
ed the idea, and then begins again strongly in May
with increasing intensity through June and July up
to the time of the President's conversion. The first
unsuccessful phase in early March, 19 18, is before
the fright caused by the German success. The sec-
ond successful phase coincides with the farthest ad-
vance of the Germans towards Paris. President
Wilson's final decision on August 4 is four days
before the day which Ludendorff calls the turning
point of the war. Thus intervention was launched
as part of the grand strategy of the war against
Germany. The news is all to that effect. "Sees
Russia Now as Ally of Germany" — "Germans
Overrun Siberia" — "Germany Boasts an Open
Route to India" — "German Leads Bolshevist Ar-
my" — "Bolsheviki Yield Russia's Riches to Ber-
lin" — "Russians Sell Out to the Germans" — these
are headlines typical of the items we have listed
under "German Domination of Russia," in the
months between Russia's withdrawal from the war
and the formal acceptance of the policy of inter-
vention by the American Government. Occasionally
dispatches come through presenting another pic-
ture. It is reported, for instance (as in the Times
on June 17), that Germany is finding her Russian
venture somewhat disappointing in its results. But
these reports are not followed up, verified,
or insisted upon. The accepted news is that Ger-
many is dominating Russia. Assuming the sub-
stance of this news to be true, there was still a
practical question. Vladivostok was 5,000 miles
from the old Russian front. The only other en-
trance to Russia was on the Arctic Ocean. The
Japanese alone had an army to use, if they were
willing to use it, and they were over 5,000 miles
from Germany. Archangel and Murmansk were

AugUSt 4 f IQ20

THE NEW REPUBLIC

i5

gates to Russia, though bad ones, but there was no
army of any size that could be diverted to that
front before the armistice. All the other gates to
Russia were blocked.

These elementary considerations do not figure
very much in the news. The practical difficulty is
met, when it is met at all, by news of anti-Bolshe-
vists in Russia ready to roll up around and behind
a small allied army. These anti-Bolshevists and
their intentions were crucial, for unless they existed
and wanted intervention and were ready to fight,
the meager allied forces available would be lost in
a wilderness. What does the news say about the
prospects of Russian support for allied interven-
tion?

The True Voice of Russia

There were of course rebellions reported on the
periphery of Central Russia. But the first serious
news which had some stategic relation to the Jap-
anese army appeared, we believe, April 21, 19 18,
announcing from Washington the receipt of cables
to the effect that the Provisional Duma of Au-
tonomous Siberia requested Allied assistance in a
program of self-government and resistance to Ger-
man penetration. On May 5, Mr. A. J. Sack,
Director of the Russian Information Bureau, issued
an appeal to the American people for supplies and
troops.

"In the first place," said Mr. Sack, "you must
distinguish between the Bolsheviki and the Russian
people. . . . An expedition advancing through Siberia,
organizing the sound Russian elements into a great
force .... could certainly count on the support of
the Caucasian and Cossack peoples . . . ." Asked
whether there would be armed opposition he replied:
"There would undoubtedly be opposition at first, but
it is highly improbable that Germany would be able
to spare any large number of men. ... If Germany
were in the allied place .... she would have 3,ooo,-
000 Hussions fighting on the east hont within a
year."

This was the picture of Russia conveyed by the
official press bureau of the so-called Russian Em-
bassy in Washington. In the month of June the
advocates of intervention were busy making the
picture seem a true one. Lady Murial Paget, "a
group of influential Russians," Mme. Botchkarova,
M. Konovalov, other interventionists, all come to
Washington "to tell about Russia." The distin-
guished French philosopher, M. Henri Bergson,
arrived on a mission to the White House about this
time, unrecorded so far as the Times Index shows,
or our own search of the files. There were appeals
for intervention from the Far Eastern Russian
Committee, from Russians in Harbin, from Ker-
ensky and from Russians of the Murmansk coast.
On June 17 the Times reported "Russian military
men in this country" as eagerly awaiting action by
Congress.

On August 22, the Allied governments issued
a statement at Archangel (Times, August 26) :

"The Allies, then, were called to Russia by the
only legitimate and representative authority, for the
purpose of military action in common aiming at the
expulsion of the Germans and the complete sup-
pression by force of arms of the Brest-Litovsk treaty,
traitorously signed by the Bolsheviki."

On September 6, intervention then being a fact,
Mr. Arthur Copping says (Special to the Times,
Archangel, August 16) :

"The true voice of Russia, the voice of non-Bol-
shevist Russia, besought the help of the Allies, and
the Allies could not continue deaf to that insistent
appeal. . . ."

One of the difficulties is that the appeal from
Russia did not begin until nearly two months after
the appeal from Foch on February 26, 19 18.
Moreover the idea of intervention had been bruited
among the Allies as early as August, 19 17, and
perhaps earlier.

The Push for Intervention

Intervention was, as we have seen, based on two
themes: German domination of Russia, and the
readiness of anti-Bolshevik Russia to fight. Both
themes were an appeal to reason, if the information
they embodied was correct, correct, mind you, not
incidentally, but in the true perspective of events.
The German theme disappeared almost instanta-
neously with the armistice. The reality of the anti-
Bolshevik uprising was tested by military campaigns
under Kolchak, Denikin, and Yudenitch. The news
of these campaigns is discussed in sections VI to
XL

Beside the appeal to reason there was a vast
amount of news directly advocating or directly fore-
casting the much desired intervention. The inter-
ested reader will find more than one hundred and
forty news items bearing directly upon intervention
in the months between February and July.

All this leaves out of account the vast amount of
opinion and feature material frankly aimed to per-
suade the reader. It was even reported, in the guise
of news, that intervention would have a quieting
effect on Russian politics. Thus a dispatch from
Tokio, dated August 3 :

"It is predicted in well-informed circles here that
the present concerted action by the Allies in Siberia
will act as a sedative on the situation. . . ."

That the news columns in this period were used
to persuade the readers of the wisdom of a certain
policy, held by the Times itself, will hardly be dis-
puted. Take a front page dispatch like the follow-

i6

THE NEW REPUBLIC

August 4, IQ20

ing on May 20. (Special from Washington, May
19.) The captions read as follows:

WASHINGTON SEES CHANCE TO BRING
RUSSIA BACK IN WAR

BUT VIEW IS TAKEN THAT IT MUST

BE SEIZED WITHOUT LOSS

OF TIME

DELAY TO FOE'S ADVANTAGE

AND MILITARY AID TO BOLSHEVIST

GOVERNMENT WOULD PLAY

GERMANY'S GAME

COMBINED ACTION URGED

NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS MIGHT BE FOSTERED

BY JOINT CIVIL COMMISSION WITH

MILITARY PROTECTION

This in our judgment is a clear and flagrant ex-

ample of the invasion of the news by editorial opi-
nion. We are not overstating the matter when we
say that a great deal of the news about Russia in
the period under consideration was marked by such
propagandist methods. We grant the patriotism
of the motives; we simply point out the fact,
and question the conception of journalism which
it illustrates.

The tendency noted in the earlier sections, the
tendency to evaluate the news on the basis of hope,
degenerates after the shock of Russia's withdrawal
and the increasing impetus of war psychology into
passionate argument masquerading as news. This
degeneration is noticeable from February, 19 18,
right up to the final collapse of the White Generals,
and beyond.

v. The Front Changes

Why had Allied troops been sent into Russia?
In the months preceding intervention the dominant
reason defined by statesmen, press associations and
special correspondents was the necessity of recon-
stituting some sort of an eastern front to face the
Germans. As the foregoing section disclosed, in
the five and a half months that elapsed between the
withdrawal of Russia from the war and the formal
acceptance of the policy of intervention by the
American government, the Red Peril played an in-
significant part in the hot discussion over interven-
tion in Russia's internal affairs. Germany had the
front of the stage. Upon the notion of a Peril that
would sweep out of Russia and attack western
civilization there was practically no emphasis.

This continued to be the situation in the first days
following the landing of Allied and American
troops on Russian soil. There were, to be sure, a
few warnings that Lenin either had declar-
ed war* upon one or more members of the En-
tente, or soon intended making such a declara-
tion.* But in August, September and October —
in the days immediately preceding the end of the
war — it was still the anti-German note that pre-
dominated. On September 4, for instance, when
Allied intervention had become an accomplished
fact, the Times published an unidentified dispatch
from London, declaring

"It is reported here on what seems to be good
authority that the Germans have decided to take
military action in Russia against the Allies and have
delivered an ultimatum to the Bolshevist government
demanding free passage for their troops. Official
confirmation of this is awaited."

* See, for example, the Times of August 7, 8, 9, 10 and
23, 1918.

Again, a week later, a special to the Times from
Washington asserted

"What is regarded as closely approximating an
offensive and defensive alliance between Germany and
the Bolshevist Government in Russia is involved in
the treaty just negotiated between them, the first
official information concerning which reached the
State Department today in a dispatch from American
Ambassador Francis at Archangel."

It was about this time (September 15 to 21, in-
clusive) that the Sisson documents were published
— proving, in the eyes of the Times, that the Bol-
shevists had ruled Russia "as German valets. M That
was still the loud note in the news from Russia
during these days when the war in Europe was
drawing near its close. On October 20 — twenty-
two days before the armistice — the Times published
this news in a special dispatch from Carl Acker-
man, then at American Field Headquarters in Si-
beria:

"In Khabarovsk the Russians believe that the Bol-
shevist life is measured by the ability of Germany's
military to hold out. With the splendid advance in
the west, every foot gained is also a gain in Russia,
because Germany is being weakened here, too. Once
her prestige is destroyed, the power of the Bolshevxki
will crumble."

That was a bad guess. But it was reinforced by
propaganda coming from the ever-ready "Russian
Information Bureau. M On the very eve of the ar-
mistice this Bureau issued a statement (published in
the Times on November 5 ) misinforming the
American public that

"The Bolsheviki, who rule in part of Central
Russia by means of mass terror, are able to stay in
power only through German support. As soon as

/lugUSt 4, IQ20

THE NEW REPUBLIC

i7

this support is withdrawn the population will over-
throw them."

Six days later the armistice was signed. German
support ivas withdrawn. The Soviets stayed where
they were. . . . But for nearly two years the "Rus-
sian Information Bureau 11 has gone on making
prophecies.

Something to Fight For

It seems to us important, at this point, once more
to take stock of the situation that existed on the
day of the armistice. Interventionist statesmen
and correspondents had prepared the way for in-
tervention on the ground that war with Germany
demanded it On the day of the armistice the war
with Germany was ended. Not another German
soldier would march into Russian territory; Foch
had his complete surrender. There were, to be
sure, still Czechoslovak troops in Siberia. And to
those troops the State Department note of August
4 had promised "such protection and help as is
possible . . . against the armed Austrian and Ger-
man prisoners who are attacking them," But re-
gardless of the numbers of those prisoners — now,
with Austria and Germany defeated, the Allies
could have shut down upon communication between
any such armed bands and their home govern-
ments. And there were, moreover, Allied and
American troops in Russia — at Archangel, for in-
stance, and at different points in Siberia — who were
not associated with the withdrawal of the Czechs,
but rather dispatched to Russia in accord with the
plan of reconstituting a new front againstGermany.
There was, in addition, the question whether fur-
ther munitions and supplies should be shipped to
certain Russian factions to be used against certain
other Russian factions. Did the interventionists
at once point out that with the armistice there re-
mained no possible reason for reconstructing an
eastern front against Germany? Or did there sud-
denly appear in the post-armistice news a new em-
phasis — an emphasis no longer upon Germany —
and yet one serving equally well to justify the re-
tention of Allied troops on Russian soil and the
furnishing of aid to one Russian faction as against
another?

Three days after the armistice (November 14)
there appeared in the Times these headlines:

BOLSHEVISM IS SPREADING IN EUROPE;

ALL NEUTRAL COUNTRIES NOW FEEL

THE INFECTION

Under these headlines there appeared a dis-
patch from London (unidentified) declaring "The
most serious question of the hour, in the opinion
of some newspapers here, is how far Europe is in-
fected with Bolshevism.'* Sweden was alarmed.
"Newspapers in Spain, Holland, and even Norway
also express apprehension over the spread of the

Red Flag movement. The troubles in Switzerland
also cause uneasiness. A general strike began there
today."

One war was done. A new one was beginning to
take its place. The Red Peril, hitherto an insig-
nificant item in the news as compared with the peril
of a Russia dominated by Germany, now took pre-
cedence in the dispatches. Reports descriptive of
Russia's aggressive intentions upon the rest of the
world came more frequently over the wires, A
week after this first dispatch, on November 21, the
Times published a special cable from Mr. Julian
Grande, in Berne;

"The general strike here, which lasted three days,
must not be considered as a mere local disturbance,
but as of international interest, because it shows the
extent of the mischief which the Russian Bolsheviki
have already succeeded in doing. It is now known
that the Bolshevist agents in Switzerland intended to
organize a sanguinary revolution, hoping to extend it
to the neighboring countries, Italy and France." Etc.

That same day the Times published a dispatch
from Washington, stating that while "no definite
word" had been received, "recent reports from
London have been taken by some observers to in-
dicate that Great Britain may propose the sending
of additional troops into Russia to place the country
on a stable footing and eliminate the Bolsheviki."

A new note, you observe, was appearing. It was
not "to establish an eastern front" that this dis-
patch suggested Great Britain might send troops
into Russia: it was "to place the country on a
stable footing and eliminate the Bolsheviki." The
note was a popular one. Three days later (No-
vember 24) another Washington dispatch was
published in the Times, reporting that in the
opinion of Prince Lvov, Premier of the first Pro-
visional Government, military and economic inter-
vention was "imperative to save Russia against the
revolutionary element now in control of its affairs. "
On December 13 the Times reported that "Corne-
lius J. Callahan, manager of the Russian-American
Company for International Trade, a subsidiary of
Gaston, William and Wigmore, who left Moscow
six weeks ago, said yesterday at the company's
offices, 39 Broadway, that, in his opinion, it would
be necessary for the United States to send a for-
midable' army into Russia to restore order." And
three days later there appeared an Associated Press
dispatch from Constantinople, giving the opinion
of Paul Milukov that "the only possible cure for
the present trouble in Russia is that an Allied force
be landed immediately in the south." The follow-
ing day the Times asked editorially: "Having
entered Russia for a purpose, why not carry out
that purpose?" Reconstitute an eastern front?
No. "Start a real movement to drive the Bolsheviki
out." "The presence of a foreign army is usually
an irritation; the irritation is there now; we can

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August 4, IQ20

remove it if we reinforce our armies and do some-
thing that will make it safe to withdraw them
later . . , Unless we drive the Bolsheviki out of
Petrograd and Moscow the population of the bulk
of Great Russia will have a winter of starvation."

Red Peril

A month after the armistice thus found editorial
writer, correspondent and statesman all well on
the way toward supplying for intervention a reason
as compelling as that motive which the armistice
had done away with. "Red Peril Pictured
As Alarming" said a headline in the Times
on December 18 ; and four days later an Associated
Press dispatch from Berlin brought a report that
Radek, on the occasion of his recent visit to that
city, had "boasted that 'the money sent to Berlin
to finance the revolution was as nothing compared
to the funds transmitted to New York for the pur-
pose of spreading Bolshevism in the United
States.' " U A military expedition starting at
Odessa," said the Times, that same day, u couId
even now overthrow our armed enemies at Moscow
and save famine-stricken Petrograd, and then meet
the little force we have put in Murmansk."

Such passages as these, from the pens of editorial
writers, correspondents and Authorities on Russia,
show how facile was the transition following the
armistice. A few days more, and it may fairly be
said that the new motive was dominant. Thus, on
December 24, the Times published a special dis-
patch reporting that "Rumors have been current
in Washington that General Pershing, acting under
an understanding with President Wilson, has been
preparing to send forces from France to Russia."
On the same day Mr. Charles Selden cabled from
Paris that to deal with u the Bolshevism that men-
aces the world" Prince Lvov and his colleagues
had asked for 150,000 Allied troops. (Times,
December 26, 1918.) Two days later came a
second cable from Mr. Selden, reporting that while
there would be no Allied intervention in Russia on
a large scale — because "no European Government
at the present moment cares to risk arousing the
opposition of its people to sending large bodies of
troops to Russia for a Winter campaign" — never-
theless "a strong allied expedition is about -to re-
inforce the expedition already in Southern Russia,
and they will take the place of the German troops
evacuating the Ukraine." Another two days, and
headlines on the first page of the Times an-
nounced —

MENACE TO WORLD BY REDS IS SEEN

DIPLOMATS AND OTHERS IN PARIS EXPRESS MUCH
ANXIETY OVER THE SITUATION

The dispatch which these headlines introduced
was one from Mr. Walter Duranty in Paris, dated

December 28. U A French business man, just re-
turned from Moscow after three months' imprison-
ment by the Bolsheviki" had told Mr. Duranty
"You people are living in a Fool's Paradise." A
Danish diplomat, also unnamed, had reported
that "to believe that Bolshevism meant nothing
but disorganization . . . was to make a mistake for
which the world might pay dearly in the near fu-
ture." Moreover —

A high official at the Russian Embassy, whom I
saw this morning, confirmed the main points of the
ominous condition of affairs in Russia.

"It is certainly true," he said, "that the Bolsheviki
are better organized than most persons here imagine.
They have forced officers and officials of the former
regime to work for them under pain of death. Ac-
cording to the latest information we have received, they
do appear to be spreading westward, and may create a
grave state of affairs for Western Europe by joining
hands with the extremist party in Germany, which
seems to be getting control, at least, for a time.

That day, editorially, the Times cast its
die. "The fault which the Allies are committing
in the front of their new enemy, the Bolsheviki,"
it said, "is the same they have so long committed
in front of their old enemy, the German autocracy.
They allowed the enemy all the advantages of the
offensive, and merely resisted at whatever point
the enemy chose in turn to attack ....
Similarly the Bolshevist assault on civiliza-
tion has all the advantages of the offensive ....
As for the fear that advance into Russia would
or might contaminate the soldiers of the advancing
force by bringing them into contact with Bolshevist
argument, that merely means only a postponement
of the evil day, for the Bolsheviki are on the offen-
sive and will bring that argument home to the
West without delay. When they do they will
be stronger and more powerful than they are now.
The Allies can fight Bolshevism now, before its
teeth have grown, and run the risk of having the
cruder minds among their soldiers debauched by
the argument that ignorance should rule knowledge;
or they can wait until Bolshevism has spread that
argument through the cruder minds not only of
their armies but of their whole populations, and
then fight it with their morale thus impaired. It
ought to be a choice easy to make."

The front had changed. "Their new enemy, the
Bolsheviki" — "the Bolsheviki are on the offensive"
— "Allies can fight Bolshevism now," or "they can
wait" — "it ought to be a choice easy to make."
Thus by the end of 19 18, seven weeks after the
armistice, was the transition effected. Gone was
the old enemy — Germany. In Germany's place,
demanding more cannon and platoons, stood the
"new enemy" — Soviet Russia.

August 4, IQ20

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19

VI. Kolchak

Kolchak was the spearhead of Russian inter-
vention. He was not yet in power when the Allied
councils determined to reconstitute the eastern
front. But when the emphasis shifted, with the
end of the war against Germany, he came in time
to play protagonist in the new drama. Within a
few weeks after the signing of the armistice, he
stood at the head of the U A11-Russian Government
of Omsk."

There had preceded Kolchak, in Siberia-, a gov-
ernment headed by Peter Vologodsky. It was a
government (more than one correspondent in
Siberia reported) which commanded some measure
of popular support. An Associated Press dispatch
from Vladivostok (September 22, 1918) asserted
that "democratic organizations in Omsk and Tomsk
are supporting the cabinet"; Mr. Carl W. Acker-
man cabled to the Times on November 14, "It is
a good beginning, with popular support and good
intentions and principles"; and the Times itself
said editorially (November 24), "The Omsk gov-
ernment was the nearest approach to a democratic
government representing Russia which has been
created since the Bolshevist revolution a year ago;
it was the one which the Allies could most easily
recognize."

It was this government which a coup d'etat
turned out of power on the 18th of November.
An Associated Press dispatch from Vladivostok
tells the story:

"Through a coup on the part of the council of
Ministers of the new All-Russian government at
Omsk, Admiral Alexander Kolchak has become vir-
tual dictator and commander of the All-Russian army
and fleet. Two ministers, M. Avksentieff and M.
Zenzenoff who opposed Admiral Kolchak 's dictator-
ship, have been arrested. A portion of the directorate
of the erstwhile Ufa government, which formed the
administrative body oi the new government, and to
which the Ministry was responsible, supports Ad-
miral Kolchak. Telegrams received here from Omsk
state that the move was 'due to extraordinary circum-
stances and danger menacing the state.' . . . ."

Was there an implication here that Kolchak him-
self had been a conspirator in the coup d'etat which
had arrested Ministers who "opposed" his rise to
the dictatorship? If so, the public was speedily in-
formed that no such implication was intended.
From Washington (November 22) came the fol-
lowing dispatch — based on information supplied by
the "Russian Embassy" (the italics are ours) :
"Cable dispatches received at the Russian Embassy,
today, from Siberia, throw a new light on the
changes that took place recently in the All-Russian

government of Omsk, and brought to the front,
Admiral Kolchak as dictator with the approval of
the government, A group of three military officers,
on the night of November 18, according to these
dispatches, arrested without authority two members
of the directory, Avksentieff and Zenzenoff, and
two prominent citizens of Omsk, Argunoff and
Rogovsky. The coup, the object of which is not
entirely clear, was attempted without any knowl-
edge or participation of the government. It was
promptly and emphatically disapproved by the
government. In order to prevent further irrespon-
sible activities and to maintain the principle of firm
governmental power, the Council of Ministers
urged energetic measures and issued a decree
authorizing Admiral Kolchak to take over the
power of the State. By his order, the offenders
were turned over at once for trial! }

This paragraph presents the case of Kolchak's
apologists: that Kolchak was no party to the
coup d'etat. That he was its innocent beneficiary.
That he was, in fact, brought into power for the
express purpose of preventing just such coups in
future, and for punishing those who had carried off
the present one. Did Kolchak, the innocent bene-
ficiary of a coup d'etat, bring to punishment the
officers arrested for overturning the Vologodsky
cabinet? We have been unable to find in the Times
this final chapter of the story:.

"Omsk. An order was issued to declare to all parts
of the army that Col. Volkoff, Ataman Krasilnikoff
and Army Chief Kitanayeff, who had been tried by
the Field Court Martial, were found— not guilty."

Thus runs a report in the monarchist People's
Gazette of November 27.*

The Man on Horseback

A few frank reports of the effect of the Kolchak
coup d'etat came to the Times from Mr. Acker-
man. He cabled (November 26) that "the situa-
tion is daily growing increasingly serious as a re-
sult of the Omsk coup d'etat." And again, (No-
vember 25) that "the Omsk coup d'etat has had
a bad effect upon the Czech troops, according to
General Syrovy. 'The change of government,' he
said, 'has killed our soldiers. They say that for
four years they have been fighting for democracy,
and that now that a dictatorship ruled in Omsk,
they are no longer fighting for democracy.' "

But despite such reports, the coup d'etat found

* See The New Republic of July 9, 1919.

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August 4, IQ20

an early welcome in other quarters. The same
issue of the Times which published first news
of the coup carried also the dispatch which fol-
lows:

COUP PLEASES WASHINGTON

STRONG HEAD OF SIBERIAN GOVERNMENT
CONSIDERED ESSENTIAL

"Washington, Nov. 21. — News of the coup at
Omsk by which Admiral Kolchak virtually became
dictator of the All-Russian forces, is regarded at the
State Department as another sign pointing to stabi-
lization of the movement relied upon to regenerate
Russia. The great weakness of the situation in Si-
beria, it has been believed for some time, is the lack
of a powerful head of the government who cannot
be swayed by popular demonstration and who will
work toward the reconstruction of the government
with a firm hand. . . ."

A firm hand and an ability to resist "popular
demonstration" had their charm. The same Times
editorial (November 24) which had paid tribute
to the old government admitted this much about
the new: "Kolchak's stroke changes its outward
appearance, but may not have changed the es-
sence .... Personally, Kolchak seems to be a
strong man, and an honest man. In the group
around him, is certainly to be found the nearest
approach to 'Russia' at the present moment ....
We should give all possible support to any stable
and approximately representative government that
can be found . . ."

That government, it became more and more
clear, was Kolchak's. By January 17, the Times
was ready to say: u From this distance it appears
that his [Kolchak's] appointment to a sort of con-
stitutional dictatorship was the best thing that could
have been done under the circumstances"; and by
the time Kolchak's armies were ready to move, he
might — so far as emphasis on the coup d'etat was
concerned — have been elected to the post of dic-
tator by a popular ballot. "It was a democratic
change," said the Times on April 21, "there was
no arbitrary coup d'etat."

Recognition

Kolchak had not been in power more than a
few months before the question of diplomatic
recognition for his government made the first of
its many appearances in the news. On April 18,
an unidentified dispatch from Washington asserted:
"Unofficial advices from London have reached
Washington today, that the leading Entente powers,
as well as the United States government, would
simultaneously recognize the Kolchak government
at Omsk, in Siberia, immediately after the Ger-
mans have signed the peace treaty . . . ."

It is important to note the stream of similar dis-

patches that followed. These rumors were the re-
verse side of that other picture drawn so often:
the picture of impending collapse in Petrograd and
Moscow. Foreign correspondent and Washington
bureau kept repeating that Kolchak would "soon
be recognized"; foreign correspondent and Wash-
ington bureau kept repeating that Soviet Russia
would "soon collapse." Prophecy was intertwined
with news — and was utterly false in both cases.
Kolchak was never recognized; the Soviet govern-
ment, a full year later, had not fallen, But con-
stant repetition had its effect on public opinion.

So important is the subjective effect upon the
reader of this sort of iteration that it is worth
while following this story of Kolchak recognition.
It began, as we have said, in the Spring of 19 19.
We have in the following paragraphs listed a few
of its varied reappearances. The instances seem
to us fairly chosen. In none of them does the cor-
respondent say that Kolchak should be recognized,
or that he might be; he reports that there is
evidence Kolchak will be recognized; and in
some cases, (as items in the list show) he asserts
that recognition is nothing less than an accomplish-
ed fact.

April 22* (Special dispatch, Washington) — "The deci-
sion of the United States, Great Britain, France, and
Italy .... to accord recognition to the Omsk cabinet as the
de facto government of the country was reached, it is
learned today, under the leadership of the United States,"
etc.

May 26, (Special cable, London) — "A well authorized
report reaches the New York Times correspondent that
recognition of the Kolchak government by Great Britain is
imminent. . . ."

(The headline read: "Britain to Recognize Kolchak
Government.")

May 2J. (Special cable, London) — -"The Council of
Four has unanimously decided in favor of the recognition
in principle of the Kolchak government, advices from Paris
say. This disposes of rumors current here relative to Presi-
dent Wilson's opposition. . . ."

(The headline read: "Allies Recognize Kolchak Cab-
inet.")

June 12. (Havas, Paris) — "The Council of Four has
the complete text of the reply of Admiral Kolchak. . . .
Recognition of the Omsk government, it is believed, will
not be much longer delayed."

(Headline: "Recognize Kolchak Soon.")

August 26. (Special dispatch, Washington) — "Roland
S. Morris, the American Ambassador to Japan, who was
sent to Omsk to confer with officials of the Kolchak gov-
ernment and make report on the situation in Siberia, has
recommended that the American government grant imme-
diate recognition to the Kolchak government .... recog-
nition is expected to be granted inside of a month. . . ."

* The date, in each instance, is the date of publication in
the Times.

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21

Kolchak in Power

Recognition is ordinarily granted a de facto
government only when it seems to have secured
a firm hold over the people which it governs. Dur-
ing the months Kolchak was in power there ap-
peared in the Times evidence to show that despite
the coup d'etat which had upset a democratic gov-
ernment, Kolchak was winning the loyalty of the
Siberian people. Some of these reports had their
origin in u the Russian Committee in Paris" (over
which an ex-Minister of the Tsar presided) ; others,
in "the Russian Embassy" in Washington. Many
such reports, however, were based upon events of
some significance and merited transmission as news.

No doubt there were Zemstvos and trade unions
and other democratic bodies that gave their support
to Kolchak; we know (by this time) that there
were also certain others, both in Siberia and in
European Russia, that gave equal loyalty to the
Soviets. A declaration of support by a democratic
assembly, either in favor of Kolchak or in favor
of Lenin, is a news event of somewhat similar im-
portance. Is it the true function of a newspaper
and a press association to report or to ignore such
events without discrimination? In the Times you
will find sixteen reports* of declarations by
Zemstvos, trade unions and other bodies, in favor
of the Kolchak government. There is no similarly
complete record of that gradual accretion of power
which the Soviets must have had, to stay on top
in Moscow.

Emphasis is an important factor in journalism.
It is sometimes achieved simply by silence. Section
III of this review gives a resume of the various
reports of revolt in Soviet Russia, of strikes and
of revolutions. It is fair to say that whenever the
Soviets were suspected of being in trouble, and of
course they were in trouble, the entire civilized
world knew of it the following morning.

"Was Kolchak never in trouble? He was, to be
sure, harrassed by bandit leaders like Semenoff,
and Kalmykoff.t But the Times had an explana-
tion^ for his failure to rid himself of such gentry:
"In spite of the demands of his war with the Bol-
sheviki, he [Kolchak] made preparations once, if
not twice, to send a military expedition against these
two Cossack adventurers, with the object of restor-
ing all Siberia to allegiance to the Omsk govern-
ment. Americans returned from Siberia say that
this vindication of authority was halted by the mili-
tary representatives of a foreign government, who
find the Cossack leaders useful for their own pur-

* >n. 9, 1919; Jan. 18; Jan. 27; April 6; May 21;
May 22; June 1; June 7; June 11; June 13; July 22;
July 25 ; July 31 ; Aug. 3 ; Sept. 27 ; Nov. 23.

t See Times of May 31, 1919; August 1; August

7 ; e tc.

I Editorial, October 4, 1919.

poses, and who threatened to use force against
Kolchak if he persisted.' 1

Kolchak, in other words, could not be expected
to take on Japan when he went gunning for two
modest bandits. And with the reasonableness of
this logic we agree — though it might be pointed
out that the constant open rebellion of Semenoff
and Kalmykoff made a little absurd the designations
"All-Russian Government" and "Supreme Ruler."

But aside from the bandit chieftains, what of
Kolchak's control over his own section of Siberia?
What preparation had a reader of the Times for
the revolutionary explosion that was coming? Had
he been warned that it was from Vesuvius that
Kolchak ruled?

It is remarkable how little can be found in the
columns of the Times to suggest the revolution that
was to sweep Kolchak out of power — until the re-
volution itself had broken. Reports received in
August, that Ambassador Morris had found
Kolchak's position critical, were followed by reports,
of a more favorable turn. Even as late as December
2, the conclusion of a Times editorial was not
one that foreshadowed collapse. Kolchak was seek-
ing to remedy mistakes ; "his government should be
much more solidly established hereafter."

Twenty-two days later, there was no government
left to establish. On December 23, a revolutionary
government was proclaimed in Kolchak's second
capital (Irkutsk). The following day, came
Kolchak' s abdication :

"In order to unite all armed forces fighting to
make secure our political organization, I name Gen-
eral Semenoff, Commander in Chief, with head-
quarters in the Irkutsk and trans-Baikal Russian
military districts. All military commanders will be
subordinate to him."

The Supreme Ruler had resigned in favor of the
Cossack Adventurer himself. Ironically, from
Washington, on December 31, came a special dis-
patch to the Times (italics ours) :

". . . . Information now received indicates that
the appointment of Semenoff was in reality very little
more than a recognition by Admiral Kolchak of an
already established fact . . . ."

To the reporting of Admiral Kolchak's activities
in the field it has seemed worth while to devote a
separate section of this study. That section fol-
lows. For Kolchak's activities as a statesman, the
Czechs may speak. They knew and served him
best:

"By guarding and maintaining order, our army has
been forced against its convictions to support a state
of absolute despotism and unlawfulness which has had
its beginnings here under defense of the Czech arms.

"The military authorities of the Government of
Omsk are permitting criminal actions that will stag-

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AugUSt 4, IQ20

ger the entire world. The burning of villages, the
murder of masses of peaceful inhabitants and the
shooting of hundreds of persons of democratic con-
victions and also those only suspected of political dis-
loyalty occurs daily. The responsibility for this be-
fore the peoples of the world will fall on us, inas-
much as we, possessing sufficient strength, do not pre-

vent this lawlessness.

"Thus our passiveness appears as a direct conse-
quence of the principles of neutrality and non-inter-
ference in Russian internal affairs, and we are
becoming apparent participants in these crimes as a
result of our observing absolute neutrality." (Times,
November 18, 1919.)

vii. The Kolchak Offensive

An American can picture the position of Kol-
chak's armies, before the start of the 1919 offen-
sive, if he imagines that Moscow is Des Moines,
ai^d that the Kolchak forces are drawn up on a
line reaching roughly from Lake Ontario, on
the north, to Roanoke, Va., on the south. It must
further be imagined, of course, that the railway
lines reaching westward from the Appalachians are
greatly inferior in trackage and rolling stock to
anything that might be called a trunk line in this
country. Moreover, while the Appalachian Moun-
tains may be considered as non-existent, for Kol-
chak, it is necessary to add a number of new and
important rivers to our map — rivers flowing north
and south, and thereby forming bunkers in the way
of an advance upon Des Moines, should hostile
forces dynamite the bridges. Finally, the important
industrial cities between Des Moines and the Ap-
palachians have no equivalent in Russia between
Perm and Moscow. There are, for our calcula-
tions, no Pittsburgh^, Buffalos, Clevelands and
Detroits — along the line of advance — in which old
equipment might be repaired and new material se-
cured.

What resources had Kolchak, for an advance
upon Moscow, in the face of difficulties so sub-
stantial?

Three months before the start of his of-
fensive, he was credited with an army numbering
"100,000 men, 200,000 more recruited, and await-
ing equipment." (Statement by Boris Bakhmeteff,
published in the Times December 31, 1918.) How
many of the second 200,000 had been equipped
when Kolchak gave the word to start, it is impos-
sible to say. It is also impossible to find in the
Times a confident estimate of the number of Soviet
troops opposing him. Some advantage Kolchak
had, however, in the fact that the tide was running
in his direction when he started. Late in December,
Siberian and Czechoslovakian troops had captured
the city of Perm, (which corresponds to a point
near Hamilton, Ont., on our transposed map) with
reported captures of 31,000 prisoners, 120 field
guns, 1,000 machine guns, and the annihilation of
ten Bolshevist regiments. (Associated Press dis-
patch from Vladivostok, published in the Times
January 3, 1919O

The Offensive Starts

Now the extraordinary thing about the news
of Kolchak's westward push is the extravagance
of the claims that were made for him, on the basis
of what can fairly be called indefinite information.
First news of what might be called the opening
of the Spring offensive, was published in the Times
on March 25. (Unidentified dispatch, Paris.)
Kolchak was then advancing on a line some 250
miles in length. "At certain points" he had driven
the Bolsheviki back "more than thirty miles"; a
small city (Okransk) had been captured.

Two days later, the Times published a second
dispatch. (London via Montreal.) The definite
information it contained was meagre. "A large
number" of prisoners had been captured; three
Bolshevist, regiments had been "annihilated"; the
city of Osa had been taken. Probably few Amer-
icans, however, realized that the capture of Osa
had about the same significance and represented
about the same progress as the advance of our imag-
inary army from Hamilton, Ont., to a point on the
north shore of Lake Erie; and accordingly few may
have thought the headline of the Times and the first
sentence of the dispatch unduly optimistic:

KOLCHAK PURSUES BROKEN RED ARMY

"London, March 26 (via Montreal) — The troops
of the Kolchak government who pierced the Bol-
shevist front on a thirty-mile sector on March 11,
continue their progress and the position of the Bol-
sheviki is precarious "

Their position, apparently, was equally precari-
ous in Moscow and Petrograd. On April 3, a
special cable to the Times from London (quoting
the Morning Post's correspondent in Warsaw) ,
announced that "Lenin and Trotzky have come
to a definite break." "The situation in Moscow
and Petrograd has become so serious that there is
promise of a popular uprising against the entire
Bolshevist regime . . . ."

Meantime, during the first three weeks of April,
the news of Kolchak's campaign was not substantial.
Soviet troops were "retiring rapidly" on the ex-
treme southern end of the line; a regiment had
deserted in the north; nine hundred Bolsheviki

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23

European Russia, superimposed upon a map of the United States to show relative distances.

Moscow coincides with Des Moines, Iowa.

2 4

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August 4, IQ20

had been slain in Sarapul (a city which would cor-
respond, on our transposed map, to Lorain, Ohio) ;
and the city of Sterlitamak (about as far west, com-
paratively, as Grafton, W. Va.) had been taken.
On the basis of such achievement, however, the
Times published (April 20) — under the headline:
"Reds Collapsing in the East" — the opinion vol-
unteered by the "Russian Embassy" in Washington,
that "a collapse of the Bolshevist forces in Eastern
Russia was imminent." The Soviet army, declared
the "Embassy," , was becoming "more and more
demoralized."

Kolchak Triumphant

Two days later, on the first page of the Times
there appeared the headlines:

RED RULE TOTTERS AS KOLCHAK WINS

Now Kolchak, though readers of the Times
might not have realized it, was still some five
hundred and ninety miles away from Moscow when
the Soviets thus tottered. At Chateau-Thierry the
Germans were fifty miles from Paris. What was
the basis of such cheer? "Heavy losses" had been
inflicted on the enemy; demoralization of the Bol-
shevist troops was "reported to be growing"; three
divisions had refused to fight; there were more
rumors of revolts by the peasants.

We are, at this point, hastening along toward
the very zenith of Kolchak's success. Note what
happens in the meantime: an Associated Press
dispatch from Paris (dated April 28) reports him
in a village forty miles east of Samara (which, on
an Americanized version of the map, might put him
somewhere near Covington, Ky.) ; another dispatch
from Paris (dated eleven days later) reported the
evacuation of Samara itself; another six days, and
Kolchak was in the city. This, in a few words,
is the story of the drive on Moscow. Practically
no definite claims had been made of prisoners
taken, losses inflicted, or war material captured.
Kolchak's troops had simply followed an army
(size unknown) apparently retreating at least in
good enough order to save the bulk of its supplies.
So far as the occupation of Des Moines was con-
cerned, Kolchak still had Indiana, Illinois, and half
of Iowa to fight across. Yet on May 15, the French
Wireless Service, plus the headline-writer of the
Times, informed the public :

KOLCHAK PLANS MOVE ON MOSCOW

BUT SIBERIAN DICTATOR SAYS HE WILL FIRST SEEK
TO DESTROY THE RED ARMY

********
"Paris, May 13 (French Wireless Service) — Plans
are being made by the All-Russian government at
Omsk to begin an advance on Moscow, Admiral
Kolchak, the head of the government, declared in an
interview with the correspondent of the Petit Pa-
risien. . . ."

From the hills of Kentucky Kolchak saw, but
only with his mind's eye, the steeples of Des Moines
— saw them, now no more than four hundred and
ninety miles before him.

Disillusion

Samara was the apex. Three weeks later
(June 6), the Times reported Kolchak's capture
of Uralsk. But Uralsk was behind the line of ad-
vance, farther to the south. And the following
day, there appeared this cryptic sentence in a Lon-
don report of Winston Churchill's address to the
House of Commons:

"Mr. Churchill said that the check to Admiral
Kolchak's advance was now T more pronounced, and
that no attempt should be made to encourage extra-
vagant hopes in that quarter."

What did Mr. Churchill mean? He may have
puzzled readers of the Times. But in this instance
he proved himself a prophet. Five days later, the
Times published a report that Soviet troops were
in Ufa; July 3, they had recaptured Perm. Kol-
chak was back where he had started. An unidenti-
fied dispatch (Paris, July 5) brought a ray of hope:
"Reports from Omsk" told of "an improvement in
the situation." Soviet troops were "showing fat-
igue"; Kolchak was "receiving reinforcements."
But it was of little use. On July 17, the Times re-
ported the capture by the Soviet army of the city of
Ekaterinburg. Kolchak in that defeat lost one of
his most important bases. Ekaterinburg was the
center of the Ural mining district, and the site of
important factories. Was it the end of the offen-
sive?

No. Not, at least, for the "Russian Embassy."
A special to the Times from Washington, dated
July 31, brought the reassuring opinion of Boris
Bakhmeteff, now returned from Paris. One should
go slowly in evaluating a "temporary reverse."
"Ups and downs, fluctuations of military chance are
but natural." "For a healthy cause, a setback is
but a step toward improvement."

And then, the following morning, came a bolt
from the blue:

"Paris, Aug. 1 (Associated Press) — The All-
Russian government is preparing to move from Omsk
to Irkutsk, Siberia, and the morale of the Kolchak
army is becoming so bad that there is little hope of it
regaining the territory lost to the Bolsheviki, accord-
ing to dispatches received in Paris. . . •"

Cheliabinsk was lost. Another important base.
There was no base left for Kolchak, now, in
European Russia. Brusquely, on August 12, the
Times told its readers what they might expect:

"Special to The New York Times. Washington,
Aug. II — The position of the anti-Bolshevist army

; 1/ v .

AugUSt 4, IQ20

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25

European and Asiatic Russia, superimposed upon an outline of the United States. Moscow comes where San
Francisco would be. Kolchak's retreat from Perm to Irkutsk was accordingly a retreat corresponding to one

from Santa Fe, N. A/., to a point off the Bahama Islands.

commanded by Admiral Kolchak is so critical that
official Washington is now openly apprehensive of the
collapse of the entire movement headed by Kolchak.
. . . The time has come, a high official of the govern-
ment stated tonight, to prepare the people of the anti-
Bolshevist world for a possible disaster to the Kolchak
regime in Western Siberia. . . ."

The following morning, three months after the
headlines had said 'Kolchak Plans Move on
Moscow," the Times tolled the bell for the fallen
Admiral. "Kolchak Beaten" was the caption on
its editorial.

Re-Enchantment

As later events demonstrated, the judgment in
that editorial was entirely sound. Kolchak's day
was done. But consider, for a moment, the con-
sequences of "Kolchak Beaten":

Kolchak was "the All-Russian Government." He
had been groomed for leadership. Suppose that he
had failed? Suppose it was clear that he had lost
his chance to get to Moscow? There might, in that
case, have been two queries working their way in-
sidiously into American opinion. First: Where
was that popular backing which Kolchak's prop-
agandists had claimed for him? Second: If the
Soviet Government were to continue to hold power,
was it not necessary to stop regarding it as a gov-
ernment we need have no policy about?

The news suddenly struck a cheerier note. Two
days after the commemorative editorial, there ap-
peared in the Times these headlines:

LONDON NOT ANXIOUS ABOUT KOLCHAK

AMERICAN FEARS THAT ADMIRAL'S FORCE IS NEAR
COLLAPSE CAUSE SURPRISE

DOUBT HE IS IN PERIL

* # * ' * # * * #

"Special Cable to the New York Times. London,
Aug. 14. — American fears that' Admiral Kolchak's
force is on the eve of collapse have been heard with
surprise in well informed circles here . . . ."

The dispatch went on to say that the well-
informed circles had heard nothing alarming from
General Knox (in the field with Kolchak), and that
alarmist reports seemed to "be inspired by deliber-
ate misrepresentations in Bolshevist wireless re-
ports." — Propaganda, in other words.

The Times correspondent in Washington wired
simultaneously in the same optimistic tone used by
his brother correspondent in London: "Despite
the unfavorable news that has come from Omsk re-
cently, there are many army officers" — no clue to
their identity — "who do not consider the situation
in Siberia so bad as it has been painted in the last
few days. These officers point out that equipment
should now be reaching Kolchak, and with the Si-
berian winter," etc ... . Moreover, "the State
Department received advices from Scandinavian

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August 4, IQ20

press sources today" — original source of Scandinav-
ian information not stated — "that conditions in
Bolshevist Russia are very unsettled, while there is
underway a great exodus from Moscow, the Bol-
shevist capital."

The Strategic Withdrawal

Nevertheless, the retreat continued. Kolchak's
army fell back into Asiatic Siberia — lost Tiumen,
another base of supply. Was it a serious loss? The
special correspondent of the Times in Washington
wired on August 18 that "from almost every point
of military stategy" the position of the Omsk army
was superior to what it had been "before the recent
withdrawal of the Kolchak forces began." (Times,
August 19.) An Associated Press dispatch from
Tokio (published three days later) was less en-
couraging; reports apparently reliable, it said, in-
dicated "that the Omsk government's position is
growing weaker instead of stronger because of
the advances of the Bolsheviki and the deser-
tion of Siberian troops." We had heard very little,
up to this point, about the desertion of Siberian
troops.

The attempts during the month of September to
keep an appearance of life in an already dead
movement were heroic. On September 6, a head-
line in the Times announced:

KOLCHAK RALLIES FROM HIS REVERSES
The dispatch that followed (a special to the
Times from Washington) declared that from what
was "gathered" in the "Russian Embassy" the tone
of telegrams from Omsk during the last ten days
had been "more encouraging and comforting";
Kolchak was "making plans for dealing with the
situation."

And though, a few days later, a wireless from
Moscow claimed the surrender to the Bolsheviki
of what remained of Kolchak's Southern Army,
there was at this time a little flurry about Kolchak's
regaining the offensive. He had, by the end of
the month, pushed the Soviet troops back seventy-
five miles, u along the whole front," and taken
15,000 prisoners. (Associated Press, Omsk, Sep-
tember 28.) And on October 13, a wireless mes-
sage from Omsk to London claimed again that "the
Bolsheviki are retreating along the whole line."
According to a London dispatch:

"The message also reports that a Bolshevist wire-
less dispatch had been received which admitted that
in a plebiscite in Moscow, the workmen had declared
themselves against the Soviet and as supporting Ad-
miral Kolchak."

Certainly, with the Moscow proletariat coming
out for Kolchak there was reason to keep faith
burning.

The End of the Kolchak Myth

The collapse of the "All-Russian Government"
came suddenly, and for readers of the Times, per-
haps a little unexpectedly. A brief two weeks
more, and there arrived direct from Omsk news
that gave warning of the impending smash. An
Associated Press dispatch (dated October 29) re-
ported that "the Siberian armies of Admiral Kol-
chak have been falling back rapidly since their re-
cent reverses on the line of the Tobol River." These
reverses foreshadowed the loss of Kolchak's capital.
Nevertheless, an Associated Press dispatch from
Omsk, on November 6, reported that the departure
of the Allied Missions was "not believed to denote
any immediate danger to Omsk." But the danger,
for all that, was there. Nine days later Kolchak
had fled his capital with the last remnants of his
army, and the Bolsheviki had marched in. It is
typical of reports of the whole campaign that even
in the loss of the capital itself there was consolation
to be found:

"Sentiment despite the reverses suffered by the All-
Russian armies continues in favor of Kolchak and
the evacuation of Omsk is not regarded as jeopard-
izing the stability of the government and the integrity
of the army." (Associated Press, via Novo Niko-
levsk, November 11.)

So ended the Kolchak offensive. It ended, as
it began, on a note of cheer. There was a thin
stream of later news: the weary withdrawal to
Tomsk; the further retreat to Irkutsk; the British
War Office statement (Associated Press, London,
January 1) that Kolchak had "ceased to be a factor
in Russian military affairs."

An extraordinary offensive it had been indeed. It
never got within four hundred miles of its objective.
It ended two thousand miles behind the line from
which it started. On its behalf, when it was mov-
ing westward, extravagant claims were put forward;
in retreat, there was constant assurance that an early
turn was coming.

Failure of the Allies to send war material was the
chief cause of Kolchak's rout? You will find Times
editorials to assure you of that. But you will find
also Mr. Lloyd George, saying in the House of
Common, on November 8 : "We have given real
proof of our sympathy for the men of Russia who
have helped the Allied cause, by sending one hun-
dred million sterling worth of material and support
of every form."

That was not enough? No. Something more in-
deed was needed. 'What Kolchak's offensive demon-
strated was that soldiers, too, were necessary. And
the soldiers did not materialize — those Russian
soldiers who, the interventionists had promis-
ed us, would so willingly flock to Kolchak's stand-
ard.

August 4, IQ20

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27

VIII. Denikin

The Denikin government, even more clearly than
the government of Omsk, was a product of military
power. Under the Tsar's regime, Denikin had held
high office. He had once been Chief of Staff; later,
in command of the Russian armies on the south-
western front. Apparently he was an able soldier;
but until his sudden rise to power there was certain-
ly nothing in his career to mark him as that sort of
radical democrat who alone could hope to rule suc-
cessfully in revolutionary Russia.

What put Denikin at the head of a government
was simply the support of Cossack troops. The fol-
lowing dispatch tells the story:

"Copenhagen, Nov. 20. — The Ukrainian govern-
ment has been overturned and Kiev has been captured
by troops from Astrakhan, according to Kiev dis-
patches to the Swedish newspapers. The Ukrainian
National Assembly has fled and a Provisional Gov-
ernment has been established by the captors of the
city, who are apparently commanded by General
Denikin, leader of the anti-Bolshevist forces."

There was no "coup d'etat." Denikin simply
marched in and smashed the government headed by
Skoropadski. That government, however, was "pro-
German"? It has been variously described. Mr.
Harold Williams, cabling to the Times from
Geneva, on November 20, asserted that "General
Skoropadski's last cabinet was pro-Entente, and in-
stead of independence of the Ukraine demanded a
union with federated Russia." Whether pro-En-
tente or pro-German, Bolshevik or Bourbon, one
thing is clear. It was no sort of popular referendum
that put an end to the last Ukrainian cabinet. It
was a Cossack army.

Democracy in the Ukraine

Now despite the fact that Denikin had been Chief
of Staff under the Tsar, despite the fact that he had
chosen the Tsar's own Foreign Minister (Sergius
Sazonoff) to represent him internationally, an at-
tempt was nevertheless made to establish the credit
of Denikin's government as a democracy. Effort
to create such an impression, while never so in-
sistent as in the case of Kolchak, followed the same
lines. Evidence principally of two sorts was intro-
duced.

First: There were declarations of a democratic
program. Some of these statements came from the
government itself. For such statements, needless to
say, neither the Times nor its field service shares
any responsibility, Such matter was properly trans-
mitted as news. But there were certain other oc-
casions when the correspondent himself undertook

to describe what the government was up to. Thus
Mr. Harold Wiliams cabled from Ekaterinodar on
July 2, 1919:

"The scheme is clear and simple. It comprises:
Russia, one and undivided, with broad local self-gov-
ernment extending in certain regions to autonomy;
land reforms giving ordered satisfaction to the land
hunger of the peasantry, an advanced labor program,
a National Assembly, elected by universal suffrage, to
determine the form of government, whether republic
or constitutional monarchy. . . ."

Was this an accurate report of the intentions of
the Denikin government on the date it was cabled?
In such a case, it seems to us, the correspondent and
his employer owe a responsibility to the public for
an examination into the sincerity of programs which
one of them offers as evidence of Denikin's demo-
cratic intentions, and the other prints.

The second sort of evidence introduced to sub-
stantiate the democracy of Denikin's regime con-
sisted of reports of the loyalty he commanded.
There were not many such reports, compared with
the number of similar declarations circulated in
behalf of Kolchak. But there were enough to sug-
gest that Denikin had found popular backing.
Thus Mr. Williams cabled from Ekaterinodar, on
June 8 :

"When Denikin passed in his car through the
streets of Kharkov women weeping for joy pressed
forward to kiss his hand and those who could not do
that, kissed even the mud-guards of his car. Endless
deputations greeted him, among them one of factory
workers who thanked him for their deliverance from
the Bolsheviki liberty."

And again, from Taganrog, on November 20,
Mr. Williams reported that "the number of volun-
teers for the army far exceeds the capacity of the
army to receive them."

Finally, so far as concessions to Ukrainian na-
tionalism were concerned, Mr, Wiliams reported
that Denikin had "made allowance for all reason-
able demands by pledging himself to a considerable
degree to the principle of regional autonomy, and
to permitting the cultivation of the Ukrainian or
Little Russian language and literature." (Rostov-
on-Don, September 13.) From the start, less at-
tention was paid to the political side of Denikin's
venture than to its military results. Nevertheless
such reports as these lent a certain aura of democ-
racy to the leader of anti-Bolshevism in the South,
Denikin had undertaken the construction of a dem-
ocratic government, had found popular support and
had "made allowance for all reasonable demands"
on the part of Ukrainian nationalism.

28

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August 4, IQ20

The Picture Fades

Suppose one were to consult the dispatches de-
voted not to celebration of Denikin in the heydey
of his success, but to explanation of his failure after
the event?

From Riga, on December 7, 19 19 — when Deni-
kin was no longer a real factor in the military situ-
ation—Mr. Walter Duranty cabled that it was
"precisely toward the re-establishment of the old
regime that the Allies* support has been direct-
ed. No matter what the White leaders may pro-
fess in the way of liberal intentions, the facts speak
more loudly still." What were these facts that
spoke more loudly still?

From other dispatches to the Times — dispatches
which arrived when the battle was over, and judg-
ment of Denikin's regime no longer a critical
issue — some of these facts may be assembled.

The cable sent by Mr. Williams on July 2, 19 19,
with its report of "a National Assembly," etc. (see
above), must have seemed to many Americans to
indicate an effort on Denikin's part to establish a
genuinely democratic and responsible government.
Yet it was not until seven months later, (February
2, 1920) that Mr. Williams reported certain po-
litical developments by which Denikin "ceases to be
dictator, and has taken the plunge into democ-
racy."*

Again, take Mr. Williams's report (November
20, 19 19) that u the number of volunteers for the
army far exceeds the capacity of the army to re-

* The truth of the matter is, that Denikin's government
grew more and more democratic as his army fell farther
and farther away from Moscow. In fact, by February 17,
1920, Mr. Williams reported the creation of a cabinet re-
sponsible to the elective Assembly. Note that he terms
this "a complete change in form of government. ,,

ceive them" — and compare it with the after-the-
fact explanation made by Mr. E. L. James in a
special cable from Paris, on January 31, 1920:

"It is impossible to recruit in Russia an anti-Soviet
army, large enough to achieve success, according to
M. Cinguareanu, representing Bessarabia at the peace
conference. . . . M. Cinguareanu told me that there
were many reasons why a big anti-Soviet army could
not be raised in Russia, but all others were subordi-
nate to one reason, that not enough men could be
found who wished to fight the Bolsheviki."

Or compare the early Summer report sent by
Mr. Williams that Denikin was winning popular
support with such a cable as the following:

"Berne, Oct. 11. — The Ukrainian rising against
General Denikin in southwestern Russia, is continu-
ing, especially in the neighborhood of Kiev, accord-
ing to reports received here by the Ukrainian mission.
. . . Among the troops who are fighting against Gen-
eral Denikin are many former soldiers and mounted
peasants who are said to have become enraged against
the Cossack leader because of alleged atrocities. . . ."

Mr. Williams had reported that Denikin had
made "allowance for all reasonable demands" on
the part of the Ukrainians. Nevertheless, it was
revolt in the Ukraine — widespread and almost con-
stant revolt — that played a major part in Denikin's
ultimate defeat. He pushed his troops toward
Moscow. But he marched on a bed of quicksand.
It would be easy, however, to overstress the im-
portance of the political side of the Denikin ad-
venture. Kolchak, not Denikin, was the protag-
onist of democracy in Russian intervention. Deni-
kin counted by virtue of his army. That army, for
many months, stood between the American public
and a realistic appraisal of the situation in Russia.
How effectively, a summary of the Denikin offen-
sive will perhaps reveal.

IX. The Denikin Offensive

There would be little value in tracing day by
day the news reports of the campaign in southern
Russia. The campaign does not fall into the more
or less clearly marked phases that characterize the
Kolchak offensive in the East. Furthermore, its
advances and retreats are more local in character.
There is not always a general movement of the
line. Reports of successes in the Caucasus appear
simultaneously with reports of reverses farther
west.

Nor is it the purpose of this study to write
the detailed annals of that campaign. Its purpose
is rather to review the various news dispatches that
reached the American reader, and to indicate their
character.

Cities in South Russia, of course, meant very lit-

tle to the American public. The fall of Vladikav-
kaz, of Paulograd, of Kamishin, had no significance
for the ordinary reader. But the capture of troops
and guns and war material was another matter.
One thousand prisoners on Tuesday, two thousand
on Friday, a steady iteration of this sort of news
inevitably produces an effect upon the mind of any
reader.

A second factor of importance, from the stand-
point of the present discussion, is the extent to
which the American reader was either rightly guid-
ed or misled, by the conclusions which correspond-
ents drew from actual achievements in the field.
It is with an eye upon these two factors, particu-
larly, that this review of General Denikin's cam-
paign is written.

August 4, IQ20

THE NEW REPUBLIC

29

The Spring of 19 19

During the months of April, May and June,
19 19, Denikin' s troops were operating on a line
running from the Caspian Sea to the Sea of Azov.
Perhaps it will make events more graphic if the
American analogy is again brought into service.
Moscow, once more, is represented by Des Moines.
On that basis, Denikin is operating on a
line running roughly east and west across cen-
tral Mississippi and southern Arkansas. He is try-
ing, of course, to push north. Meantime, an anti-
Bolshevist army is operating in the Caucasus
(the Gulf, on our map) ; and there are anti-Bolshe-
vist Ukrainian troops along the Pripet River
(much farther north and west; w T e might say, west-
ern Kansas).

Without doubt, the Spring offensive in the South
had one genuinely important result Denikin man-
aged to cut the contact between Moscow and the
valuable Donetz coal basin. June was the month
in which the Soviet armies began their counter-of-
fensive against Kolchak in the East. Troops from
the South may have been diverted, and, from the
Soviet point of view, diverted wisely. But the loss
of the Donetz region must certainly have been a
serious one.

Aside from this success, however, there was no
great shift in the situation in the South, during the
months of Spring. Denikin managed to push his
troops north as far as Paulograd (which might be
compared to an advance as far as McAlester, Ok-
lahoma, on the push towards Des Moines). Never-
theless, there were more or less open promises of
great things soon to come. The Times on June
24 printed a special cable from Mr. Harold Wil-
liams, declaring the rout of Bolshevism on the Eka-
terinodar front to be "marvellously complete."
There was also news of trouble on the inside of
Soviet Russia. A dispatch from the Washington
Office of the Times reported, on April 22, news
reaching the State Department that u the Lenin-
Trotzky regime is beginning to crack.' 1 A special
dispatch from Geneva, published on the same day,
asserted that the government was "menaced by an
entirely new revolutionary movement." And on
May 24, the Times gave its readers a report more
promising still :

"London, May 23. — The entire Bolshevist struc-
ture in Russia appears to be crumbling.

"The evacuation of Moscow, the head centre of
Bolshevism, has begun, according to reports brought
from Petrograd to Copenhagen by travelers, and for-
warded by the Exchange Telegraph Company. , . ."

It was in captures, however, that Denikin's army
had made a rich showing during the Spring cam-
paign. "It had already, by June 1 . . . . captured
50,000 prisoners, 30 guns, 700 machine guns, and
200 locomotives. M (Times, June 27, special cable

from London.) Later in the month, 5,500 more
prisoners, 10 more guns, and three armored trains
were added. That brought the total for prisoners
to 55,500, for the guns (including machine guns)
to 740. These figures let us carry over.

Midsummer

Denikin's army, by the first of July, had become
the chief hope of the interventionists. The Kol-
chak offensive in the East had collapsed. Kolchak
was back at the line from which he started. But
Denikin was the new hope of Russia.

During the months of July and August the anti-
Bolshevist forces in the South took from the Bol-
sheviki a half dozen cities of some importance.
Odessa was their chief prize — although, through-
out the campaign in the South — the fact that an
Allied fleet patrolled the Black Sea made Odessa
a point of less real value to the Soviets than it
might otherwise have been. Denikin's line by the
end of August, ran east approximately from Pol-
tava to Kamishin, via Kharkov and Pavlovsk. That
is, on an American version of the map, with Des
Moines representing Moscow — it ran, roughly,
across the northern end of Oklahoma, Arkansas
and Tennessee. Kharkov was nearest to Mos-
cow of the larger cities Denikin had captured.
And Moscow was still 375 miles away.

Nevertheless, the reports narrating this advance
(to a point 375 miles removed from its objective)
were often put in such a way that a complete col-
lapse of the Bolshevik defensive was made to seem
likely. Thus Mr. Williams asserted, in a cable
published on the 13th of July:

"There is really nothing now to prevent a rapid
break through to Moscow, provided communications
could be secured and civil administration be guar-
anteed. . . ."

Headlines told much the same story:

July j.

DENIKIN SWEEPING

ALL BEFORE HIM

July 10.
TROTZKY'S FORCES
FLEEING IN PANIC

July 16.

COULDN'T FIND FRONT

OF DENIKIN'S ARMIES

ADVANCED SO FAST DR. WILLIAMS

AND BRITISH OFFICERS WERE

UNABLE TO CATCH UP

July 24.
ONWARD TO MOSCOW
IS DENIKIN'S ORDER
Denikin, to be sure, was moving forward. Did

30

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August 4, IQ20

headlines such as these seem to put him very near
that ultimate success which (as events demonstrat-
ed) he was due never to attain? There was again,
in August, the familiar run of prophecy and rumor
of domestic crises facing the Soviets. On August
5, the Times published an Associated Press dis-
patch from Paris, quoting the opinion of a former
Kerensky Minister that "perhaps the bottom would
drop from the resistance of the Bolsheviki." A
week later, a headline in the Times announced:
"Strikes All Over Russia" — with a report
that Lenin intended quitting his post. Notice
how this report came to the American reader from
its original source, whatever and wherever that
source may have been. The Times got it from
some unidentified news service. This service got
it from its representative in Copenhagen. That rep-
resentative got it from "dispatches from Helsing-
fors." And those dispatches, finally, were based on
"Russian reports." Where these "reports" in turn
had their source, there was nothing in the dispatch
to indicate.

Before leaving the midsummer phase of the cam-
paign in the South, it is worth noting that during
the months of July and August there were announc-
ed in Denikin' s behalf captures amounting to 74,-
000 prisoners, 60 guns, 150 machine guns, 130
locomotives, 1200 cars, "large quantities of sup-
plies and war material," and "about half of the
military supplies and equipment of the Bolshevist
troops."* If these figures are amalgamated with
the captures announced during the Spring, the re-
ported victories of Denikin had, by the end of
August, netted him:

129,500 prisoners, 950 guns, 330 locomotives, 1200
cars, "large quantities of supplies and war material" ;
and "about half of the military supplies and equip-
ment of the Bolshevist troops"

Late in August a dispatch from London (August
21) reported that "the latest information" indi-
cated the strength of the Soviet armies on the south-
ern front to be 146,000. Denikin's captures, then,
by the end of August, had amounted to almost as
many prisoners as there were troops left in the
army opposing him.

Denikin's Farthest North

It was the month and a half beginning early in
September that saw Denikin at his best. His
troops during that period occupied a number of
strategic railway centers, one of which was the im-
portant city of Kiev. And in mid-October he
marched into Orel. Orel was Farthest North.

* This material is drawn from the following sources :
communique from Omsk, published July 18; unidentified
dispatch, London, August 1 ; Associated Press, London,
August 12, quoting War Office report; and unidentified
dispatch, London, August 28, quoting report from Gen-
eral Kamontolv.

Two hundred miles from Moscow, it might be rep-
resented in the advance upon Des Moines which
we have imagined, by a point near Topeka, Kansas.
Beyond Orel, Denikin managed to throw a
part of his army. But there the tide turned back.
The present period was marked, as the earlier
ones had been, by repeated stories of trouble be-
hind the lines of the Soviet army. Taken by them-
selves, these stories were enough to keep alive the
myth that Soviet power might soon be broken;
coupled with some of the prophecy and suggestion
contained in the report of the offensive, there may
have seemed to be no doubt about it. On Septem-
ber 28, for instance, headlines in the Times an-
nounced :

DENIKIN SMASHES
BOLSHEVIST ARMY

Staff correspondents of the Times in Washing-
ton, and in Europe, reported that chances seemed
good for an early and a complete success. Readers
of the Times were informed, on October 21, of
the confidence of such an outcome "in diplomatic
circles" in Washington, diplomatic circles" often
imparts official color to a dispatch without the as-
sumption of responsibility. On the present occa-
sion "diplomatic circles" were reported to feel that
u a few more successes" for the White armies and
"the Bolshevist leaders would make a fresh at-
tempt to negotiate peace." "It is the impression
here, however, that none of the anti-Bolshevist
leaders will consider anything but unconditional sur-
render, and the punishment of the Soviet chief-
tains."

But though its news columns exhaled an air of
early victory, the Times, it must be said, was more
cautious editorially. Had the Kolchak fiasco been
a warning? "Lenin is still strong," said the Times
on September 25, "but he is far weaker than he
seemed to be a few weeks ago." Weak indeed, if
the correspondents of the Times might be relied
upon. Mr. Walter Duranty, cabling on October
8, reported "the growing opinion" in Paris, "that
the days of the present Bolshevist regime are num-
bered" and that the government of Lenin "will
be overthrown from within." News of the
sort of thing Mr. Duranty may have had in mind
appeared in the Times a few days later (October
12):

NEW OUTBREAK
IN PETROGRAD

ANTI-SOVIET FORCES SAID TO HAVE
CAPTURED IMPORTANT GOVERN-
MENT BUILDINGS

"Copenhagen, Oct. 11. — According to a dispatch
from Helsingfors, Russian newspapers report that
serious fighting has broken out in Petrograd between
adherents and opponents of the Soviet regime.

"The 'Counter Revolutionaries' have taken posses-

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THE NEW REPUBLIC

3i

sion of several important buildings and Government
institutions, it is said. . . ."

Revolution in Petrograd, reports from Paris
that the days of the Soviet government were num-
bered, Denikin moving upon Moscow, — a reader
might not have guessed that six months later the
Soviets would still remain in power. Moreover,
there were more impressive reports of prisoners
captured and war material taken by Denikin. How
copious those captures were, the following table
shows. (Duplications have been omitted, as in all
earlier tabulations.)

Denikin in Retreat

Source, Prisoners.

Associated Press, London, 11

Sept. 13, quoting British

War Office 9,000

Special cable, Harold
Williams, Taganrog,

(published Sept. 18) 13,000

Special cable, Harold
Williams, Rostov-on-Don

(published Sept. 28) 13,600

Unidentified dispatch, Lon-
don, Oct. 7, quoting a

Denikin communique 15,000

Unidentified dispatch, Lon-
don, Oct. 13, quoting a

Denikin communique 5,000

Associated Press, London,
Oct. 16, quoting a Deni-
kin communique 5,000

Unidentified dispatch, Lon-
don, Nov. 5, quoting a

Denikin communique 55,000

War Material.
guns, 100 machine
guns.

"a large amount of
booty."

27 guns and "many ma-
chine guns."

Total 115,600

It had been estimated, let us remember, on the
basis of "the latest information," that on August
21, the Soviet forces on the southern front amount-
ed to 146,000 troops. Since that date, Denikin's
announced captures had amounted to 115 ,600.
There was left, then, the small force of 30,400 men
to defend Moscow (assuming there had been no
one killed or wounded; in that case there would
have been fewer still). Other troops were rushed
in as reinforcements? Presumably* But let us
remember, too, that during the time with which
we are now dealing, the Bolsheviki were also oper-
ating against Kolchak in the East — a thousand
miles away from Moscow. Just how inexhaustible
were the troops and the supplies of this tottering
and distracted government? Total the figures
given in these tables, and you will find that between
April 1st and late October Denikin's forces cap-
tured 1,008 guns (of various sorts) and no fewer
than 245,100 Bolsheviki. And yet, there came a
turning of the tide.

The turning, we have said, came, in late October.
There were, to be sure, later offensives on Den-
ikhVs part, some of them recovering considerable
territory. But from this time forward, most of
Denikin's announced successes were on one flank
or another. He pressed no nearer Moscow. Re-
volts behind his own line, in Ukrainia, were costly.
By the end of November, Soviet troops were 120
miles south of Orel. Three weeks more, and they
had recovered Kiev and Kharkov. At that point,
a dispatch from London (December 18) summar-
ized the opinion of the British War Office:

"During the last week, the Bolsheviki have com-
pelled Denikin to withdraw another fifty miles along
a vast front .... the present indications are there
is no reason why the Reds should not continue to
advance."

By the end of the month Soviet troops had re-
covered Ekaterinoslav; three weeks more, and they
were in Odessa — with a line flung eastward to the
Sal River, six hundred miles southeast of Moscow.
The campaign in South Russia was ended. On
March 4 came this dispatch from London: "The
complete elimination of the forces of General Den-
ikin in South Russia has been brought about, ac-
cording to expert interpretation of the War Office
advices of the past week's operations. ..."

And yet, throughout this vast retreat, what sort
of news arrived from the staff correspondent of the
Times with Denikin's forces in South Russia? Was
it plain statement of events? Or was there once
more that false note of optimism, keeping alive
the old belief that there was no need of revaluating
our policy of intervention? Let us examine a few
of Mr. Harold Williams's dispatches, printed in
the Times not in the first days of the retreat, but
after a summary of British War Office opinion
had reported that Denikin was falling back "along
a vast front" and that there appeared to be no
military reason "why the Reds should not continue
to advance."

From Denikin's headquarters in South Russia,
on December 16, Mr. Williams sent this message
to counteract any "wrong impression":

"The spectacular fall of Kharkov may easily give
a wrong impression of the situation here. It is neces-
sary, therefore, to say that in Denikin's armies there
is no impression or expectation of defeat. The losses
during the retreat have been small, and great has
been the army's disappointment at leaving the area
recently conquered. There are not the faintest symp-
toms of debacle, and the determination to win is as
strong as ever. . . ."

Mr. Williams, all along, had the disadvantage of
poor cable communications. There was, according-
ly, little snap left in his prophecies by the time they

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August 4, ig2o

actually got published. The present message ap-
peared in the Times on December 27 — and by
that time Soviet armies were eighty miles south-
west of the city whose loss Mr. Williams had mini-
mized.

Again, from Novorossysk, on January 12, Mr.
Williams cabled that Denikin' s army had "been
greatly strengthened by the infusion of fresh
troops"; but two days after this report had found
its way to New York and appeared in print (Jan-
uary 21), a Moscow wireless announced that Soviet
troops were within six miles of the Black Sea at
Perekop. On February 2, Mr. Williams, cabled
(again from Novorossysk) that "the position- at
the front is steadily improving." In fact, "the
morale of the Bolshevist troops seems suddenly to
have collapsed." But that optimistic message did
not get into print until February 18. And in the
Times of that same date appeared a Moscow wire-

less announcing that Denikin's army had subse-
quently been driven back to the Sea of Azov.

With this sort of alternately exploded and re-
viving optimism, the campaign in southern Russia
died gradually away. Denikin's offensive, like Kol-
chak's, showed how little popular support the in-
terventionists could muster. Denikin, like Kol-
chak, drew supplies and equipment from the Allies,
Probably he was even better cared for. But he
could not march to Moscow, he could not even hold
the line from which he started, because behind him
there was no body of genuine enthusiasm. For
Denikin's offensive, as for Kolchak's, great claims
were made in the campaign's early stages. And
when the later stages came, when Denikin's troops
were driven hundreds of miles by the beaten armies
of a tottering government, at least one voice was
raised to cry "This can't be true!" That voice be-
longed to the correspondent of the Times.

X. The West Front

From Kolchak and Denikin we turn to the West
front, omitting from this study the question of in-
tervention in the North. That chapter is not in-
cluded because this is primarily a study of Russian
news, not Russian history, and the news from Arch-
angel — throughout the period of Allied occupation
— was limited principally to brief reports of mili-
tary engagements. We believe that there were de-
velopments in Archangel, particularly in the dic-
tatorship of Russian civil government exercised by
Allied soldiers, which failed to receive adequate
description in the Times. We have chosen, how-
ever, throughout this study to limit our case prim-
arily to the news as printed. Partly for that rea-
son, and partly because the Archangel adventure
was never on the main track to some new "All-Rus-
sian Government," we pass over an experiment
both disingenuous and disastrous.

On the West front intervention never attained
the scope it had in the East and South: There were
neither Czechoslovaks nor Don and Kuban Cos-
sacks upon whom it could be based. The offensives
were the work of Finns and Letts and other border
peoples, assisted by certain numbers of anti-Bolshe-
vist Russians. To such forces the French and
British governments lent aid. The French supplied
military advisers; the British dispatched warships
to the Gulf of Finland; and both governments fur-
nished materials of war.

But while intervention in the West was upon a
scale more limited than that upon the other fronts,
it played nevertheless an important part in the
familiar process of convincing the western world
that Soviet power was cracking, and that foreign

armies would be welcomed by the Russian people.
There were two offensives in the West: one in the
Spring of 19 19, which the Finns and Esthonians
started; the other in the Fall, chiefly the affair of
the "Northwestern Army" under Yudenitch. Why
the Finns and Esthonians should have been so con-
cerned about law and order in Russia as to want to
invade the country, remains a question still unan-
swered.

The Spring Offensive

Petrograd, of course, was the objective of both
campaigns in the West. To its assailants, the city
offered none of the tremendous distances involved
in an advance upon Moscow. It lay just across
the border from Finland, not much more than a
hundred miles from the eastern line of Esthonia.
At home, in their own capitals, the Esthonians and
the Finns were nearer Petrograd than either Kol-
chak or Denikin ever got to Moscow.

The first offensive in the West began late in
April, 1919. On May 2, the Times published an
unidentified dispatch from Helsingfors announcing
that Petrograd was "being evacuated by the Bol-
sheviki." This dispatch was based on "reports
from reliable sources." Two days later, there ap-
peared on the first page of the Times the headline;

PETROGRAD REPORTED WON
The source of this news was another unidentified
dispatch, this time from Paris: "Petrograd has
probably been taken by the Finns, according to in-
formation believed to be trustworthy, which has
reached Paris."

August 4, IQ20

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33

But though "reports from reliable sources" and
"information believed to be trustworthy," were thus
encouraging, Petrograd was not doomed to fall this
early in the Spring. It simply disappeared from the
news for a few days — and then a fresh start was
made. On May 13, headlines announced:

TWO RUSSIAN COLUMNS
MOVING ON PETROGRAD

Three thousand troops were to march on Petro-
grad from the southern shore of the Gulf of Fin-
land, three thousand more from the Olonetz dis-
trict on the North. This information was supplied
by a dispatch from London, quoting a Socialist
newspaper published in Helsingfors. Would the
advancing columns reach the city?

The following morning there were headlines
reading:

TREDWELL REPORTS
RED RULE SHAKY

Mr. Tredwell's reports (according to a special
dispatch from Washington) had strengthened the
belief "of officials here" that the "days of the
Lenin-Trotzky regime are numbered." Two more
days, and a dispatch from Helsingfors (based on
"reports received here") announced that again the
government had advised people living in Petro-
grad to leave without delay.

What happened, next, the following headlines
show :

May 25.
PETROGRAD AFIRE
AS FALL IMPENDS

May 28.

FOREIGN REDS

OUST BOLSHEVIKI

CHINESE, LETTS, AND FINNS CON-
TROL PETROGRAD AFTER SEV-
ERAL DAYS OF FIGHTING

June 4*

REPORT PETROGRAD TAKEN

BY ANTI-REDS

ESTHONIAN AND FINNISH FORCES
HAVE ENTERED RUSSIAN CAPIT-
AL, COPENHAGEN HEARS

These headlines marked the high tide of the first
offensive. What happened afterwards is not quite
clear. There was a report, several weeks later,
(Reval to Helsingfors to London to New York,
published June 17) that the naval base of Kron-
stadt was about to be captured by anti-Soviet ar-
mies. But a little later (July 7) the Esthonian
Bureau announced quite unexpectedly that the at-
tacking army had "suffered a reverse." It was
u now in full retreat." The first offensive was end-
ed. 1

But not without results. Twice Petrograd had
been evacuated. Three times it had fallen. And
since the collapse of the attacking army received
nothing like the headlines and the news position that
went to the "evacuations" and the "falls," a reader
of the Times might be pardoned if he found him-
self, at the end of the offensive, believing the hold
of the Soviets on Petrograd a tenuous one at best.

The Second Victory

During the Summer months there was little news
of the attack upon Petrograd; but early in the Fall
the second offensive started with Yudenitch in com-
mand. It moved quickly. By October 12 it had
reached Jamburg, seventy-five miles southwest of
Petrograd. (There were so few casualties for
Yudenitch at Jamburg — twenty-seven killed and
one hundred fifty wounded — that it seemed to some
observers possible that the Soviet troops intended
to make their stand in the defenses of Petrograd
itself.) One day later and Yudenitch was approach-
ing Gatschina, thirty-five miles from Petrograd.
Four days more, and an Associated Press dispatch
from Stockholm announced the capture of the
fortress of Kronstadt by a British fleet ("according
to advices received here"). And then, on the fol-
lowing morning, and continuing for four successive
days, began perhaps as remarkable a series of head-
lines as ever the Times has published:

October 18.

ANTI-RED FORCES

NOW IN PETROGRAD

STOCKHOLM HEARS

October iq.

ANTI-BOLSHEVIKI

GRIP PETROGRAD;

END OF REDS SEEN

October 20.
PETROGRAD'S FALL
AGAIN REPORTED;
MOSCOW LINE CUT

October 21
ANTI-RED FORCES
NEAR PETROGRAD

NEWS OF FALL OF CITY BEFORE

YUDENITCH'S ARMY HOURLY

EXPECTED IN LONDON

On to Moscow? Well, not immediately. Ac-
cording to a special dispatch from Washington,
also published on the 21st: "Word was received
today to the effect that Gen. Yudenitch, if he cap-
tures Petrograd, will not immediately move against
Moscow, but will stay in Petrograd long enough
to organize the population and create a more ef-
fective force for the southward movement." Mos-

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August 4, IQ20

cow could wait. "It is believed here that Denikin
will have invested Moscow before Yudenitch is
ready to march against the Soviet capital."

So unreliable did these dispatches prove to be
that the Times itself, after its four days of head-
lines, lamented in an editorial the quality of its
news. The four reports had been based respective-
ly on a dispatch received in Stockholm; on "the lat-
est official advices" received in London; on u a tele-
gram received at the Russian Embassy in Paris";
and on a statement of the British War Office plus
"a message from Helsingfors." Coming on suc-
cessive days they marked the high point of success
for Yudenitch. During the week that followed,
sensational headlines disappeared. There was still
encouraging news: "The fall of Petrograd is in-
evitable, according to reliable advices," said an
unidentified dispatch from Reval, dated October
26. But the offensive, for all that, had reached its
end. From London, an Associated Press dispatch,
dated only one day later, reported: "The chances
of General Yudenitch, commander of the Russian
Northwestern Army, capturing Petrograd before
Winter puts an end to operations, seem again to
be fading." Overnight the situation had so chang-
ed that what had been considered "inevitable" in
Reval on Saturday was, by Sunday, "fading" in
London.

The fading, once started, proved a rapid process.
"Extraordinary pressure" was brought to bear to
induce Finland to join in the attack (Associated
Press, Helsingfors, October 30) ; but while Finland
hesitated, Yudenitch continued to fall back. By
November 4, Soviet troops had recovered Gat-
schina; a week later, Mr. Walter Duranty cabled
to the Times from Stockholm: "It is believed that

Yudenitch is thoroughly beaten." The offensive had
collapsed.

Yudenitch, like Kolchak and Denikin, had found
no soldiers with loyalty sufficient for his enterprise.
Whether his army actually melted away in its ad-
vance upon Petrograd (as a Kornilov army once
melted) we were not told. But once it had met
reverses, once it was checked, its disintegration
proved again that there was no real support for
the interventionists, A reverse that might have
proved temporary became nothing less than defeat
itself, because there was no real loyalty to the
cause. Yudenitch's soldiers left him. His forces
dwindled. By November 24, the Esthonian Chief
of Staff reported that the Yudenitch Army "had
virtually gone out of existence."

Yudenitch was an adventurer. There is no more
grim appraisal of the cause he represented, the
character of intervention in the West, than this
brief item in the Times of February 29 :

YUDENITCH QUITS ARMY

STARTS FOR PARIS WITH HIS FORTUNE OF

100,000,000 MARKS

"Copenhagen, Feb. 27. — It is officially announced
that the Latvian Government has permitted General
Nicholas Yudenitch, former Commander of the
Northwestern Army, and some of his staff officers,
to proceed to Paris, by way of Libau.

"The Berlingske Tidende's Reval correspondent
says that General Yudenitch and his Generals left
Esthonia in an automobile flying the British flag.
The correspondent states that Yudenitch is taking his
private fortune, estimated at 100,000,000 Esthonian
marks. Of Yudenitch's army, it is said, there remain
in Esthonia 12,000 men, who are suffering from
spotted typhus. There are also in Esthonia 21,000
hunger-stricken fugitives."

XL The Offensive Against Poland

The activity of Poland's army, unlike that of the
other anti-Bolshevist armies, was theoretically lim-
ited to the defensive. It was never advertised for
an advance upon Petrograd, as was the army of
Yudenitch; nor for a march on Moscow, like the
armies of Kolchak and Denikin. It was, so far as
official statement went, an army fighting to preserve
that new state created in the councils of Versailles.

Poland, however, was the keystone of the cordon
sanitaire which Foch and Clemenceau endeavored
to build around Soviet Russia. The ostensible rea-
son for this cordon sanitaire was the danger of Rus-
sian armies carrying Bolshevism into western Eu-
rope. That danger the Polish statesmen frequently
proclaimed. Soviet Russia, according to their evi-
dence, was continually on the point of launching an
offensive against Poland. America and the Allies

were summoned to the rescue. Poland needed guns
and ammunition.

Were the war materials that Poland sought in
fact to be used exclusively for the protection of
Poland's frontier? Or were they wanted for an
offensive — an offensive which was to dig deeper
into Russia, to cut a larger slice of territory for
new Poland than the generous diplomats in Paris
had awarded her?

We know, now y two things indisputably :

First: that by December 2, 1919, the Polish ar-
mies were more than 180 miles deep in Russian ter-
ritory (General Bliss told this to a Congressional
committee on January 15; it must have shocked
Congressmen who had been reading about the So-
viet offensive).

Second: that Poland, on February 24, 1920, put

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35

in a claim for an eastern frontier as it existed in
I77 2 — a claim which the Times' own Washington
correspondent characterized as so ambitious that it
might "threaten the future peace and stability of
that part of Europe unless the program of the Pol-
ish imperialists is abandoned." (Times, March 7,
1920.)

Now, these facts are known to most people
today. It was not until July of 1920, in fact, that
the Soviets started a counter-ofienslvc against the
Polish army. That Polish army, meantime, had
for more than a year and a half been deep in Rus-
sian soil. And the theory that a Polish army
can be advancing into Russia and still be on the
defensive is a theory many reasonable people have
found difficult to accept. Since General Bliss made
his statement and since the Polish diplomats put
up their peace terms, there is probably a growing
number of Americans who suspect that for a year
and a half the repeated threats of a Bolshevist of-
fensive simply served as a smokescreen for Polish
aggression.

There is no criticsm to be made of a newspaper
or a press service for reporting the opinions of
Polish or any other statesmen, provided such opin-
ions come clearly labelled.* Collecting such ma-
terial is part of the business of news-gathering. But
is it not another matter if the propaganda of states-
men appears in the form of news? We quote a few
dispatches descriptive of the relations between
Poland and Soviet Russia. In our opinion it is fair
to say that in the guise of news they picture Rus-
sia, and not Poland, as the aggressor as early as
January, 19 19. What was the actual situation, at
the time each dispatch was filed?
January 1, IQ19.

On this date, the Times published an Associated
Press dispatch from Warsaw, December 30.
"Poland," is said, "is preparing for a military
campaign along her entire Russian frontier ....
The Bolsheviki have forced the Poles to take up
arms by their advance into Polish territory"
(Italics ours.)

At what point were the Bolsheviki advancing
into Polish territory? The same dispatch had this
to say: "The Bolsheviki are advancing toward
Vilna." Now where is Vilna? Is it in Poland?
For the reader of this dispatch, that is certainly the
inference to be drawn. But Vilna, as a matter of
real fact, is east of the boundaries later drawn for
Poland by the Conference of Versailles. Of course
the man familiar with Eastern Europe or the man
who reads with an ethnographic map in hand,

* A scrupulous editor might have felt it necessary in the
case of these threats of a Soviet offensive against Poland,
to have added a note for the benefit of his readers. He
might have suggested, for instance: "It is hard to see how
a Soviet mobilization against foreign troops 180 miles deep
in Russian territory can be called an offensive/'

could set himself right by locating Vilna. But
how many readers are of that sort? In this
dispatch it is explicitly stated that "the Bolsheviki
have forced the Poles to take up arms by their
advance into Polish territory"; and then, as evi-
dence, is cited an advance upon Vilna, a city outside
Polish borders. Was the correspondent of the
Associated Press in Warsaw proceeding on the
assumption that the Peace Conference would as-
sign to Poland this city which he defined as "Polish
territory*'?

January 22, 1Q20.
The Spring offensive of 1919 had not material-
ized. Would there be a Spring offensive of 1920?
A special to the Times from Washington, dated
January 21, made this flat statement, and made it
as news:

"The strategy of the Bolshevist military campaign
during the coming Spring contemplates a massed at-
tack against Poland, as the first step in a projected
Red invasion of Europe and a military diversion
through Turkestan and Afghanistan toward India.
Plans for both campaigns are well under way, ac-
cording to the best military and diplomatic intelli-
gence received in Washington," etc.

Eight days later, as a matter of fact, the Soviet
government again "recognized the independence
and sovereignty of the Polish republic" and again
invited Polish statesmen to enter into peace discus-
sions. That offer was insincere? Assume it was.
Where were Polish troops when Russia was plan-
ning u a projected Red invasion of Europe"? They
were (see General Bliss's testimony) 180 miles
across their border into Russia.

February 16, 1920.
One further instance: A special cable to the
Times from Copenhagen, dated February 15, again
made a flat statement of fact:

"Information collected from reliable agents in
Russia leaves no doubt that the Bolsheviki are pre-
paring an enormous offensive against Poland, for
early in the Spring, that negotiations with England
are only to gain time, and then, Poland, undermined
by propaganda, cannot resist the Soviet Army of
2,000,000."

On this date not only were Polish troops still
deep in Russian territory, but in the Times itself it
was reported (special dispatch from Washington,
March 6) that the Polish representative in Paris
refused to ''transmit to Poland the demand of the
Allies for withdrawal of Polish troops to the ethno-
graphic frontier fixed by the Allied Supreme Coun-
cil."

Soviet Russia, the aggressor; Poland desperately
in need of assistance that she might hold the fron-
tiers assigned her by the Peace Conference — that,
we believe, is the conclusion a reader might have
drawn from many dispatches in the Times while

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August </, IQ20

Polish troops were still on Russian soil. There
is one particularly illuminating incident. It is un-
important, but it throws a light on the handling of
Polish-Russian news in the columns of the Times.
On March 4th appeared this dispatch:

London, March 3. — A Moscow wireless dispatch
received here, says the proposed peace conditions with
Poland have been denounced as extravagant. The

dispatch adds that Nikolai Lenin, the Bolshevist Pre-
mier, in a speech at the Cossack Congress said :

"If the Polish aggressor invades our country, we
will give him a blow that will not be forgotten."

Lenin declared that Russia would fight in self-
defense. And the headline in the Times read:

LENIN THREATENS POLAND

XII. When Intervention Failed

One section more will serve to bring this study
to an end; for with the collapse of intervention,
in the last months of 1919, relations between Russia
and the Allied world entered a deadlock during
which a single, easily discernible note has dominat-
ed the news of Russia, as that news finds expression
in the columns of the Times.

Before turning to this final chapter, however, it
is worth while to note one factor which in our
opinion played a substantial part in keeping many
Americans satisfied that there was no better policy
to be adopted towards Russia, from February to
November, 19 19, than the policy of helping White
Guards make their wars. This factor is the inade-
quate and therefore misleading fashion in which
were reported the several efforts of the Allied Pow-
ers, during that period, to give their policy a new
turn.

Of these efforts the Prinkipo proposal was the
first. Why did that program fail? On March 1,
19 19, the Times printed a dispatch from Paris,
quoting M. Clemenceau's aide, M. Andre Tar-
dieu:

"There was no longer any question of going on
with the Prinkipo conference, he informed the cor-
respondents. He said that the Bolsheviki had
failed to comply with the conditions laid down by the
Entente as to a suspension of hostilities and that the
Allies had in view new methods of restoring order in
Russia and were examining available means to carry
out this purpose."

Had the Soviets in fact refused u to comply with
the conditions laid down by the Entente as to a sus-
pension of hostilities"? Examine the Soviet reply
to the Prinkipo proposal, as printed in the Times
(February 7) :

"The Russian Soviet Government, in a wireless
message to the Entente Governments sent out from
Moscow by M. Tchitcherin, Minister of Foreign Af-
fairs, announcing that it is willing to begin conversa-
tions with the Entente with the object of bringing
about a cessation of military activities, declares it is
willing to acknowledge financial obligations regard-
ing the creditors of Russia of Entente nationality.
Moreover it offers to guarantee the payment of inter-
est on its debts by means of stipulated quantities of

raw materials, and to place concessions in mines, for-
ests, etc., at the disposal of citizens of the Entente,
provided 'the social and economic order of the Soviet
Government is not affected by internal disorders con-
nected with these concessions.' The message adds:
The extent to which the Soviet Government is pre-
pared to meet the Entente will depend on its military
position in relation to that of the Entente Govern-
ments, and it must be emphasized that its position
improves every day'. M

This constitutes the full reply of the Soviet gov-
ernment, as printed in the Times. And it lends it-
self to M. Tardieu's interpretation. For though it
considers other subjects, in it there is not a word
about willingness to suspend hostilities.

Compare, however, this abbreviated version of
the reply with the full statement as now published
in "Russian-American Relations."* In this com-
plete statement the Soviet government declares it-
self "anxious to secure an agreement that would
put an end to hostilities"; it is, in fact, ready to
discuss "the question of annexation of Russian ter-
ritories by the Entente Powers," or by "forces
which . . . receive financial, technical, military, or
any other support from them" — in other words,
Kolchak and Denikin.

What is the meaning of this discrepancy between
the complete and the abridged versions of the So-
viet reply? Simply this: that whoever prepared
the abridged version for publication — whether gov-
ernment censor or correspondent or editor — omit-
ted from that version the offer of the Soviet gov-
ernment to conclude an armistice — and that subse-
quently it was on the ground of Soviet unwilling-
ness to quit fighting that M. Tardieu, official rep-
resentative of France, justified the abandonment of
the whole plan. The Allies may indeed have been
unwilling to trust the word of the Russian govern-
ment — though to it they addressed a formal pro-
posal. The fact remains that Americans who re-
lied on the Times' version of the Soviet reply were

* "Russian-American Relations, 1917-1920" (page 298).
As an earlier footnote has pointed out, one of the three
men who directed the preparation of this volume — William
Allen White — was selected by President Wilson as Amer-
ican representative at the Prinkipo conference.

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THE NEW REPUBLIC

37

simply not supplied with a fact necessary to an in-
telligent understanding of why the Prinkipo plan
was a failure. Read in the light of the complete
statement certain other news items appearing about
the same time assume more significance. In the
three weeks before M. Tardieu gave the press his
explanation, you find not all the fighting in Russia
was being done by the Soviet forces: an Allied of-
fensive had been started near Kadish, in the North
(Times, February 9) ; Denikin had reached the
Caspian Sea after a march in which he scattered
u over 100,000 Bolsheviki" (Times, February 19) ;
Polish forces were "steadily advancing along the
railways" — advancing into Russia — and thus far
they had "met with no determined resistance from
the Bolsheviki" (Times, February 23). In these
circumstances the complete reply of the Soviets to
the Prinkipo offer would have been instructive. It
was not available.

Dr. Nansen

The Nansen offer, following close upon the heels
of the Prinkipo affair, serves as a second incident of
the sort with which we are now dealing. On April
3* (19 19) Dr. Fridtjof Nansen proposed to the
Supreme Council his plan for "a purely humanitar-
ian commission for the provisioning of Russia."
On April 17* the Supreme Council, declaring it
"shocking to humanity that millions of men, women
and children lack the food and the necessities which
make life endurable," marked out the conditions
of its cooperation and asserted that upon those con-
ditions "we should be prepared to give it our full
support." Yet the plan failed. Nothing came of
the sudden humanitarian interest. Why?

"Lenin Rejects Feeding Project," said head-
lines in the Times, on May 14 — and this report
followed :

"Paris, May 13, (Associated Press) — A wireless
message received here addressed to Dr. Fridtjof
Nansen, head of the commission to feed Russia, from
M. Tchitcherin, the Bolshevist Foreign Minister, and
relayed by the Foreign Office at Berlin, announces
that the Bolsheviki refuse to cease hostilities as a con-
dition of the provisioning of Russia by neutrals.

"Tchitcherin says he received Dr. Nansen's com-
munication, dated April 17, on May 4. He thanks
Nansen for his interest in the conditions in Russia,
but declares that a continuation of hostilities is neces-
sary for political reasons and that it would be poor
policy to stop them. The Soviet Government, he
adds, is willing to support a movement to feed Russia
so long as it has no political character, 'but will not
be duped'.

"He then goes on to denounce Admiral Kolchak
and General Denikin, and concludes by declaring

that it will be impossible to give up fighting, as ene-
mies are attacking on all sides."

How accurate a version of the Soviet reply did
this summary offer? It makes an interesting com-
parison with the complete document.* In the first
place, that document is more than 1,300 words in
length — and even the best reporter or the most
conscientious censor (whichever did the editing in
this case) must supply a necessarily inadequate ver-
sion when he compresses a document of that length
into 144 words. If the complete reply was avail-
able to the Associated Press agent, this would seem
to have been one of those occasions (particularly
in view of the unimportant material which often
comes over the wires) when he was warranted in
sending a full text. It may be that a more adequate
summary was indeed cabled by the Associated
Press, and that the pruning was done somewhere on
this side of the Atlantic. In any event, either cen-
sor, correspondent or editor missed a chance of sup-
plying the American public with information neces-
sary for an independent judgment of the situation.

But this is not all. The published summary is
not only abbreviated, but it omits entirely the one
point in the complete document which in our opinion
is most relevant. According to the published sum-
mary, the Soviets declare "it will be impossible to
give up fighting." What does the unabridged text
say, at this point?

"We are in a position to discuss cessation of hostil-
ities only if we discuss the whole problem of our
relations to our adversaries — that is, in the first place,
to the Associated Governments. That means to dis-
cuss peace, and to open real negotiations bearing upon
the true reasons for the war waged upon us, and upon
those conditions that can bring us lasting peace. We
were always ready to enter into peace negotiations,
and we are ready to do it now as before."

Add this passage to the Soviet reply as published
in the Times of May 14. It does not, to be sure,
alter the fact that the Soviet government turned
down the Nansen offer. The Soviets did reject that
proposal, as the headlines said they did. But their
declared reason for rejecting it — a reason indicated
neither in headlines nor in the dispatch — was not
because they chose to keep on fighting, but because
they asserted only a general peace could put an end
to war. This was an irrelevant observation? No.
The Council of Four, in its reply to Dr. Nansen,
had declared that any "relief to Russia which did
not mean a return to a state of peace would be
futile and would be impossible to consider." The
Soviet government thereupon declared its willing-
ness "to discuss peace and to open real negotia-
tions." Its offer may have been disingenuous. The
Council of Four, though it declared for peace, may

* See "Russian-American Relations, 191 7-1920" (pages
329-331).

* Now published in "Russian- American Relations, 191 7-
1920" (page 332).

38

V

THE NEW REPUBLIC

have been unwilling to face it, when it came. But
this was not the phase of the question suggested to
the American public by the abridged version of the
Russian reply published in the Times. That abridg-
ed version declared the Soviet reply to be: "it will
be impossible to give up fighting." The proposal
for a general peace was entirely omitted. Six days
later (May 20) the Times published this second
dispatch — a tombstone marking the burial spot of
Dr. Nansen's plan:

"Paris, May 18. — There is a general impression
that the reply of M. Tchitcherin, Bolshevist Foreign
Minister of Russia, to Dr. Fridtjof Nansen's pro-
posals to feed Russia, brings the whole project to a
close. The reply is generally accepted here as, in
effect, a refusal by the Bolsheviki to cease attempting
to invade their neighbors' territory. . . ."

War's End

The failure of the Nansen plan and of the
Prinkipo conference, with the subsequent and equal-
ly dismal failure of the three White Generals,
brought the Allies through their second year of in-
decision and left them, at the end of 19 19, no
nearer peace in Eastern Europe than they had been
before. The period which followed, the period
with which this study closes, may be said to have
had its beginning in November, 19 19. By that
time there was little hope left of success for the
White armies. Kolchak was "falling back rapidly"
in Siberia (Associated Press dispatch dated October
29) ; Yudenitch had had his second try at Petro-
grad, and missed it; Denikin had touched his farth-
est north, and now was facing south again. Winter
promised little to the interventionists.

Out of the failure of the White Generals might
have come, in those days of early winter, a break
in the current of American opinion. Intervention
was discredited. So was the myth of a Soviet Gov-
ernment perpetually tottering on the brink of de-
struction. If the Soviets were there to stay, even
though their stay be temporary, was it not neces-
sary to revaluate the policy of the Allies? Reports
of atrocities — there had been scores of such reports,
during 19 19 — had kindled in American opinion no
feeling of respect or friendliness for the Soviet
Government. But war had failed. War in Eastern
Europe meant no peace for the rest of the world.
Why not try peace with Russia? Not peace in its
diplomatic sense, probably, with loans and treaties,
and all that may accompany formal recognition.
But peace in the sense of having nothing more
to do with playing favorities, with dis-
patching arms to one faction at the expense of
another. Peace, too, in the matter of the blockade,
with medicines for a stricken country, and a re-
sumption of trade relations provisional upon good
behavior in respect to "international propaganda."

Some such policy, we believe, was a natural out-
growth of the factors in the Russian situation at
the end of 19 19 — an outgrowth of the failure of
intervention, of the natural reaction from war
towards peace, and of the uneasiness that must have
been growing in the minds of many normally gener-
ous Americans over a policy which condemned to
starvation and to death by disease many Russian
men and women innocent of all complicity in the
Soviet adventure. What prevented these opinions
from ripening into insistence upon a re-assessment
of American policy toward Russia?

Doubtless a number of different factors played
their part. One factor, we believe, falls within the
range of this present study: the character of the
news about Russia coming in a rush during the final
period with which we are now dealing.

From the time the three White Generals had
started their offensives until the winter months came
round, the dominant note in the news — as the fore-
going sections amply illustrated — had been one of
all-pervading optimism. Kolchak and Denikin
were on more than one occasion advancing upon
Moscow — Yudenitch, upon Petrograd. And from
within Soviet Russia, we remember, came many re-
ports of crises and counter-revolutions heralded in
headlines as foreshadowing the doom of Soviet
power. In the months between March and No-
vember, 19 19, there was little in the news about
Red Peril. White was triumphant.

Once before, in such a moment as this, when Al-
lied diplomacy had come squarely to the cross-roads,
the Red Peril played a part in turning it from peace.
That, as an earlier section of this study has told,
was immediately after the armistice — when there
was no longer motive for reconstituting an eastern
front, and when reason pointed to a withdrawal
of troops from alien soil. Then the Red Peril ap-
peared — furnishing a new cause for intervention.
Once again, at the present cross-roads, that Peril
emerged from the oblivion to which the past six
months had relegated it — and cast its shadow on
the sky.

Early November (19 19) marked its reappear-
ance. On the 10th of that month the Times printed
a special cable from London. "Attempts were made
in several countries over the week-end," it read, "to
put into operation an ambitious program of a 'Red'
international effort at a world rising in support of
Bolshevism." Four days later appeared another
dispatch from London:

LENIN THREATENS INDIA

HINTS AT FUTURE OPERATIONS IN LETTER TO
TURKESTAN REDS

London, Nov. 13. — Nicolai Lenin, the Russian
Bolshevist Premier, has sent a letter to Turkestan
Communists in which he says that the restoration of
communications between Soviet Russia and Turkestan

AugUSt 4, IQ20

THE NEW REPUBLIC

39

"opens the way for a struggle against universal im-
perialism headed by Great Britain,"

The message is interpreted here as a hint at opera-
tions in the direction of British India.

Two weeks later (November 30) headlines in
the Times announced:

CRISIS IN THE FIGHT
AGAINST BOLSHEVISM

A NEW MILITARY MENACE TO BE OVER-
COME IN EASTERN EUROPE TO
MAKE VICTORY SECURE

There followed a special dispatch from Washing-
ton. Events in Russia, it declared, had brought
officials and diplomats u to a sudden reconsideration
of the whole complicated situation involved in the
worldwide menace of the Bolshevist movement."
That familiar device — the "welkinformed circle" —
was busily spinning again:

"The best canvass of opinion in well-informed
circles in Washington indicates that the Russian Bol-
shevist movement is now to be regarded primarily as
a military menace rather than as a political one — a
menace that should be dealt with militarily and
crushed militarily, just as the threat of German mili-
tarism and imperialism against the world's safety,
which loomed larger when the German drives began
in the Spring of 1917, almost simultaneously with the
entry of the United States into the world war, had
to be met militarily."

What was to be the Allied program? Those in-
timately familiar with the situation had ready a
solution :

"It has now become clear to men intimately fa-
miliar with the situation that the Bolshevist military
menace must be smashed and that in President Wil-
son's phrase, it can be met only with 'force without
stint'."

To a long train of similar dispatches picturing
the Red Peril these two were the forerunners. Those
which followed touched on many themes. Aside
from the idea of general peril there was, for in-
stance, the special peril menacing the Baltic States.
Thus on December 17 (19 19) the Times published
a special dispatch from Washington, asserting that
the Soviets were attempting "to dragoon the
Esthonians into acceptance of impossible demands
in the face of military pressure." A high official
in the State Department had summarized for the
correspondent his idea of the Russian tactics:

"These demands," said a high official of the State
Department today, in an authorized statement having
the indorsement of Secretary Lansing, "which would
make Esthonia essentially a part of Bolshevist Russia,
are being enforced by determined military attacks
upon the Esthonian front. . . ."

Yet when peace was signed, seven weeks later, a

headline in the Times itself announced: "Esthonia
Got Much From Soviet Russia" (Times, February
6, 1920).*

Again, there was the special peril menacing
countries less directly in the path of Soviet Russia
than were the Baltic states. Headlines on the first
page of the Times, December 30, 19 19, reported
"Reds Seek War with America"; and the Times
of February 11, 1920, carried this dispatch:

FEAR THAT BOLSHEVIKI WILL NOW INVADE

JAPANESE TERRITORY
Honolulu, T. H., Feb. 9 (Associated Press)
— Siberian Bolsheviki have captured Alexandrovsk,
capital of the island of Sakhalin, and fear is felt that
the radical forces may enter Japan proper, according
to a special cable dispatch from the Tokio corres-
pondent of Nippu Jiji, Honolulu Japanese language
newspaper. . . .

Now and then there was peril which the Amer-
ican Government itself took a hand in advertising.
Thus the Times on February 7, 1920, under head-
lines asserting u Reds Raising Army To Attack
India," carried a dispatch beginning in the follow-
ing fashion:

Special to the New York Times.

Washington, Feb, 6. — A brief but significant
announcement was issued by the State Depart-
ment today, based on its official advices, to the effect
that the Bolsheviki were endeavoring to establish
military bases in Turkestan for a campaign against
India.

"The department's information," says the official
announcement, "is to the effect that in Turkestan the
Bolsheviki are recruiting natives and war prisoners
into new units and are establishing military bases
said to be preliminary to a campaign against India."

As authority for this statement the Department
cited an intercepted wireless message from Moscow
to Tashkend, on December 6, 1919, announcing
that "a propaganda train for organization and in-
structive purposes will be dispatched to Turkestan."
This intercepted wireless was all of the document-
ary proof brought forward. Nothing in the pub-
lished report was said of any propaganda outside of
Turkestan. Was the State Department (guilty of
more than one slip in the past) forgetful of the fact

* Esthonia, according to accounts in the Times, Feb-
ruary 3, 4, and 6, 1 920, received full recognition of her
independence; fifteen million rubles in gold; exoneration
from her proportional share in the repayment of Imperial
Russia's debt; and preferential rights to a concession for
building and exploiting direct railway connections between
Moscow and the Esthonian frontier. Times headlines an-
nounced February 15, however, that the Esthonian peace
was only a "Lenin makeshift," and that Lenin had de-
clared the terms would "be quite different when local Reds
get control."

4°

THE NEW REPUBLIC

August 4, 1920

that Turkestan had been part of Russia when the
Tsar sat on the throne? Was it no longer a part
of Russia? The one solid thing in the State De-
partment's memorandum was an intercepted wire-
less, and that wireless proved only that the Govern-
ment of Russia was attempting the no doubt hazard-
ous experiment of winning the Mohammedans of
Russians Turkestan by propaganda instead of simp-
ly by the bayonet in the manner of the Tsar.

Red Peril Again

To gauge the effect of steady repetition, and to
mark the sources from which material for that re-
petition was drawn, take the news of a single month.
We have chosen January of the year 1920. For
the present purpose that is an important month be-
cause it was then that final elimination of the last
of the three White Generals had begun to prepare
the way for new rumors that the Allies contemplat-
ed peace with Russia. The Red Peril, in that month,
was a frequent visitor:

January 5*: Mr. Duranty cables from Riga
that he has obtained copies of letters written to
Moscow by a captured courier, and that they prove
Moscow is working for "the establishment of
universal dictatorship of the proletariat and Soviet
rule."

January 9 : "Official quarters" describe the Bol-
shevist menace in the Middle East as ominous.
(Special cable from London.)

January 10: "It is asserted" that the Soviets
plan an offensive against the British in India. (Un-
identified dispatch, London.)

January 1 1 : "Allied officials and diplomats"
envisage "a possible invasion of Europe." (Special
dispatch from Washington.)

January 13 : "Allied diplomatic circles" fear an
invasion of Persia. (Another special from Wash-
ington.)

January 16: "British military authorities" ex-
pect an attack on Persia. (Special cable from
London.)

January 16: "Expert military opinion" expects
an attack on Poland. (Associated Press, from
London.)

January 16: "Well-informed diplomats" expect
both a military invasion of Europe and a Soviet
advance into Eastern and Southern Asia. (Special
dispatch from Washington.)

January 20: "It is understood" that the Supreme
Council considered measures for protecting Azer-
baijan and Georgia from attacks by the Soviets.
(Unidentified dispatch, Paris.)

January 21 : "Information . . . placed before the
three Premiers" shows the Soviets are planning to
open the way into Mesopotamia and Persia. (Mr.
Edwin L. James, cabling from Paris.)

* The date, in each instance, is the date of publication in
the Times.

January 21: "A dispatch to the Central News
from Paris" states that the Supreme Council will
send 200,000 troops to oppose the Soviets in the
Caucasus. (Associated Press, London.)

January 22 : "The best military and diplomatic
intelligence received in Washington" expects a
massed attack against Poland. (Special dispatch
from Washington.)

January 23: "Poland's diplomats" expect a mil-
lion Soviet troops to be sent against them. (Mr.
James, cabling from Paris.)

January 30: "The French Foreign Office has
received from its agents in India a report saying
that the Bolsheviki are making extensive prepara-
tions for an uprising in India against the British."
(Mr. James again.)

Fourteen dispatches in the month of January,
warning of Red Peril to India and Poland, Europe
and Azerbaijan, Persia, Georgia and Mesopotamia.
That, averaged, is a dispatch almost every alter-
nate day throughout the month. The net effect was
certainly towards checking growth of an opinion
that Russia's failure to rally to the interventionists
had demonstrated the need of a new policy — of
considering the Soviets as an authority with which
some sort of truce could and must be made. You
cannot make truce with Peril.

There is, of course, the point of view which re-
gards as wholly desirable this checking of the
growth in public opinion towards support of a new
policy. The reiterated warnings of Red Peril, ac-
cording to this point of view, performed a useful
public service. That, certainly, is a logical attitude
— and it is no part of our task to dispute it. We
are discussing not Russian policy but Russian news.
It seems to us important, however, not only to note
the fact that such dispatches appeared with regular-
ity during a period when they were most useful,
but also to mark the sources from which they were
drawn: letters of a captured courier, "official
quarters" (London), "allied officials and diplo-
mats" (Washington), "allied diplomatic circles"
(Washington), "British military authorities"
(London), "expert military opinion" (London),
"well-informed diplomats" (Washington), infor-
mation "placed before the three Premiers" (Paris),
"a dispatch to the Central News from Paris" (Lon-
don), "the best military and diplomatic intelligence
received in Washington," "Poland's diplomats,"
agents of the French Foreign Office in India. There
are certain sources here — the last, for instance —
which seem more definite and responsible than cer-
tain others. But to us it seems fair comment that
taken as a whole, with their reliance upon unidenti-
fied "experts" and "diplomats" and upon "official
quarters" where rumor invariably finds its favorite
haven, particularly with the subordinate, these
sources represent in fact a fairly irresponsible as-

August 4, JQ20

THE NEW REPUBLIC

4i

* sortment. The impression that they had their in-
spiration in rumor rather than in fact, it must be
added, is heightened by contrasting them with what
has actually happened subsequent to their publica-
tion. Five months have passed since January. But
it was Poland, and not Russia, that first started an
offensive. Soviet troops have indeed been landed
in a Persian port (Enzeli), but there they went in
pursuit of a Russian fleet which had landed there
before them — Denikin's — and a dispatch to the
London Herald states they have subsequent-
ly been withdrawn.* There has been no uprising
in India. Nor has there been an invasion of India.
There has been no invasion of Mesopotamia. The
most sensational, in fact, of all these January dis-
patches, was as sensationally contradicted on the
very day following its publication. January 16, a
first-page headline in the Times, eight columns
wide, announced:

BRITAIN, FACING WAR WITH REDS, CALLS
COUNCIL IN PARIS

And the following morning came the news:

NO WAR WITH RUSSIA, ALLIES TO TRADE
WITH HER

The first report, then, was not reliable. So swift

See the Times, June 19, 1920.

a contrast between rumor and fact would — even
were there no other reasons for doubt — raise legiti-
mate suspicion concerning the accuracy of other
news pitched in a similar key.

It is on the note of the Red Peril that this study
ends. It has appeared at every turn to obstruct
the restoration of peace in Eastern Europe and
Asia, and to frustrate the resumption of enonomic
life. The Allied proposal in January to open trade
relations was speedily labelled "nothing more than
a tactical political move" on the part of the Allied
Governments (special dispatch from Washington
to the Times, January 22). In that way, too, have
been tagged successive offers coming from Russia.
u There has been no doubt at any time in Washing-
ton official circles, " said a special dispatch to the
Times, March 14, u that the Soviet 'peace* drive
represented nothing more than a scrap-of-paper
policy of the Soviet leaders, a mere tactical move,
and that what they really sought was a breathing
spell in which to concentrate their energies for a
renewed drive toward world-wide revolution."

Each peace proposal, whichever side first launch-
ed it, a tactical move .... Meantime the Red Peril.
That, with armed intervention no longer a possibil-
ity, was the propaganda in the news. And if the
peace of the world had not hung in the balance it
would have made an interesting stalemate.

Deductions

Assuming that the preceding chapters constitute
at least a prima facie case for saying that the run
of the news on one matter of transcendent impor-
tance to Americans has been dubious, what de-
ductions are there to be drawn by the constructive
critic of the press? Primarily, we believe, that the
professional standards of journalism are not high
enough, and the discipline by which standards are
maintained not strong enough, to carry the press
triumphantly through a test so severe as that pro-
vided by the Russian Revolution.

First as to standards. The analysis shows how
seriously misled was the Times by its reliance upon
the official purveyors of information. It indicates
that statements of fact emanating from govern-
ments and the circles around governments as well
as from the leaders of political movements cannot
be taken as judgments of fact by an independent
press. They indicate opinion, they are controlled
by special purpose, and they are not trustworthy
news. If, for example, the Russian Minister of
War says that the armies of Russia were never
stronger, that cannot be accepted by a newspaper
as news that the armies of Russia are stronger than
ever. The only news in the statement is that the

Minister says they are stronger. By any high jour-
nalistic standard, the Minister's statement if it deals
with a matter of vital importance is a challenge
to independent investigation.

The analysis shows that even more misleading
than the official statement purporting to be a state-
ment of fact, is the semi-official and semi-authorita-
tive but anonymous statement. Such news is
fathered by such phrases as :

"Officials of the State Department"

"government and diplomatic sources"

"reports reaching here"

"it is stated on high authority that"
Behind those phrases may be anybody, a minor
bureaucrat, a dinner table conversation, hotel lobby
gossip, a chance acquaintance, a paid agent. Dis-
patches of this type put the editor at home and the
reader at the mercy of opinion that he cannot check,
and it is time to demand that the correspondent
take the trouble to identify his informants suffi-
ciently to supply the reader with some means of es-
timating the character of the report. He need not
name the individual source but he can 'place' him.
The analysis shows that certain correspondents
are totally untrustworthy because their sympathies

r

\

42

THE NEW REPUBLIC

JugUSt 4, IQ20

are too deeply engaged. Mr. Harold Williams's
reports from Denikin's army were obviously queer
at the time and are ridiculous in the light of events.
A reporter is not entitled to hold an assignment
when his disinterestedness is open to question. One
is not able to avoid the impression that in the se-
lection of correspondents the virture of conformity
is at least balanced against the virtues of objectivity,
insight and credibility.

The analysis indicates also that even so rich and
commanding a newspaper as the Times does not
take seriously enough the equipment of the cor-
respondent. For extraordinarily difficult posts in
extraordinary times, something more than routine
correspondents are required. Reporting is one of
the most difficult professions, requiring much expert
knowledge and serious education. The old conten-
tion that properly trained men lack the "news
sense" will not stand against the fact that improper-
ly trained men have seriously misled a whole nation.
It is habit rather than preference which makes read-
ers accept news from correspondents whose useful-
ness is about that of an astrologer or an alchemist.
Important as it is for the press to read lessons in
efficiency to workingmen, employees and politicians,
it is no less important for the press to study those
lessons itself. Measured by its responsibility and
pretensions the efficiency of the newspapers is not
what determined men could make it.

The analysis shows further that at critical periods
the time honored tradition of protecting news
against editorials breaks down. The Russian policy
of the editors of the Times profoundly and crassly
influenced their news columns. The office handling
of the news, both as to emphasis and captions, was
unmistakeably controlled by other than a profes-
sional standard. So obvious is this fact, so blatant

is the intrusion of an editorial bias, that it will re-
quire serious reform before the code which has
been violated can be restored.

Where is the power to be found which can define
the standards of journalism and enforce them?
Primarily within the profession itself. We do not
believe that the press can be regulated by law. Our
fundamental reliance must be on the corporate tra-
dition and discipline of the newspaper guild. It
is for them to agree on a code of honor, as the
Bar Associations and Medical Societies have agreed,
and for them to watch vigilantly for infractions of
that code. As citizens they cannot escape this duty,
and as members of a profession they are forced
to it by the growing distrust which everywhere
greets them. They know that to-day they are feared
but not intimately respected, and the sins of some
are visited upon all.

But while the technical code of journalistic stand-
ards, the tradition and the discipline belong to the
guild, newspapers must be prepared for an in-
creasing supervision from the readers of the press.
Those readers will not simply "write letters to the
editor" effective as such letters are. They will
speak through organizations which will become
centers of resistance. The report on the steel strike
made by the Interchurch World Movement is an
example of such resistance to the newspaper reports
of that strike. The report on the activities of the
Attorney-General by twelve lawyers for the Popu-
lar Government League is an example of re-
sistance to the red hysteria of 1919-20. They il-
lustrate the point that a powerful engine of criticism
is appearing in the community which will no longer
naively accept the current news on contentious
questions. With that fact the profession of jour-
nalism will have to make a reckoning.

AugUSt 4, IQ20

THE NEW REPUBLIC

m fjE take pleasure in announcing that we have just been ap-
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The following list is sslected for those Interested not only In
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Russia but

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what he ironically calls a policy of Bolshevism, which
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*08